Apologetic Method

That one God formed all things in the world, by means of the Word and the Holy Spirit: and that although He is to us in this life invisible and incomprehensible, nevertheless He is not unknown; inasmuch as His works do declare Him, and His Word has shown that in many modes He may be seen and known.

1. As regards His greatness, therefore, it is not possible to know God , for it is impossible that the Father can be measured; but as regards His love (for this it is which leads us to God by His Word), when we obey Him, we do always learn that there is so great a God , and that it is He who by Himself has established, and selected, and adorned, and contains all things; and among the all things, both ourselves and this our world. We also then were made, along with those things which are contained by Him. And this is He of whom the Scripture says, And God formed man, taking clay of the earth, and breathed into his face the breath of life. Genesis 2:7 It was not angels , therefore, who made us, nor who formed us, neither had angels power to make an image of God , nor any one else, except the Word of the Lord, nor any Power remotely distant from the Father of all things. For God did not stand in need of these [beings], in order to the accomplishing of what He had Himself determined with Himself beforehand should be done, as if He did not possess His own hands. For with Him were always present the Word and Wisdom, the Son and the Spirit , by whom and in whom, freely and spontaneously, He made all things, to whom also He speaks, saying, Let Us make man after Our image and likeness; Genesis 1:26 He taking from Himself the substance of the creatures [formed], and the pattern of things made, and the type of all the adornments in the world.

2. Truly, then, the Scripture declared, which says, First of all believe that there is one God , who has established all things, and completed them, and having caused that from what had no being, all things should come into existence : He who contains all things, and is Himself contained by no one. Rightly also has Malachi said among the prophets : Is it not one God who has established us? Have we not all one Father? Malachi 2:10 In accordance with this, too, does the apostle say, There is one God , the Father , who is above all, and in us all. Ephesians 4:6 Likewise does the Lord also say: All things are delivered to Me by My Father; Matthew 11:27 manifestly by Him who made all things; for He did not deliver to Him the things of another, but His own. But in all things [it is implied that] nothing has been kept back [from Him], and for this reason the same person is the Judge of the living and the dead; having the key of David: He shall open, and no man shall shut: He shall shut, and no man shall open. Revelation 3:7 For no one was able, either in heaven or in earth, or under the earth, to open the book of the Father , or to behold Him, with the exception of the Lamb who was slain, and who redeemed us with His own blood, receiving power over all things from the same God who made all things by the Word, and adorned them by [His] Wisdom, when the Word was made flesh ; that even as the Word of God had the sovereignty in the heavens, so also might He have the sovereignty in…

3. I have also largely demonstrated, that the Word, namely the Son , was always with the Father; and that Wisdom also, which is the Spirit , was present with Him, anterior to all creation, He declares by Solomon: God by Wisdom founded the earth, and by understanding has He established the heaven. By His knowledge the depths burst forth, and the clouds dropped down the dew. Proverbs 3:19-20 And again: The Lord created me the beginning of His ways in His work: He set me up from everlasting, in the beginning, before He made the earth, before He established the depths, and before the fountains of waters gushed forth; before the mountains were made strong, and before all the hills, He brought me forth. And again: When He prepared the heaven, I was with Him, and when He established the fountains of the deep; when He made the foundations of the earth strong, I was with Him preparing [them]. I was He in whom He rejoiced, and throughout all time I was daily glad before His face, when He rejoiced at the completion of the world, and was delighted in the sons of men. Proverbs 8:27-31

But having asserted that our religion is supported by the writings of the Jews , the oldest which exist, though it is generally known , and we fully admit that it dates from a comparatively recent period — no further back indeed than the reign of Tiberius — a question may perhaps be raised on this ground about its standing, as if it were hiding something of its presumption under shadow of an illustrious religion, one which has at any rate undoubted allowance of the law, or because, apart from the question of age, we neither accord with the Jews in their peculiarities in regard to food, nor in their sacred days, nor even in their well-known bodily sign, nor in the possession of a common name, which surely behooved to be the case if we did homage to the same God as they.

Then, too, the common people have now some knowledge of Christ , and think of Him as but a man , one indeed such as the Jews condemned, so that some may naturally enough have taken up the idea that we are worshippers of a mere human being. But we are neither ashamed of Christ — for we rejoice to be counted His disciples , and in His name to suffer — nor do we differ from the Jews concerning God. We must make, therefore, a remark or two as to Christ's divinity. In former times the Jews enjoyed much of God's favour, when the fathers of their race were noted for their righteousness and faith .

So it was that as a people they flourished greatly, and their kingdom attained to a lofty eminence; and so highly blessed were they, that for their instruction God spoke to them in special revelations, pointing out to them beforehand how they should merit His favor and avoid His displeasure. But how deeply they have sinned , puffed up to their fall with a false trust in their noble ancestors, turning from God's way into a way of sheer impiety, though they themselves should refuse to admit it, their present national ruin would afford sufficient proof . Scattered abroad, a race of wanderers, exiles from their own land and clime, they roam over the whole world without either a human or a heavenly king, not possessing even the stranger's right to set so much as a simple footstep in their native country.

The sacred writers withal, in giving previous warning of these things, all with equal clearness ever declared that, in the last days of the world, God would, out of every nation, and people, and country, choose for Himself more faithful worshippers, upon whom He would bestow His grace , and that indeed in ampler measure, in keeping with the enlarged capacities of a nobler dispensation. Accordingly, He appeared among us, whose coming to renovate and illuminate man's nature was pre-announced by God — I mean Christ, that Son of God . And so the supreme Head and Master of this grace and discipline, the Enlightener and Trainer of the human race , God's own Son, was announced among us, born — but not so born as to make Him ashamed of the name of Son or of His paternal origin.

Let us add in completion what follows, and exhibit now with greater clearness the plagiarism of the Greeks from the Barbarian philosophy . Now the Stoics say that God , like the soul , is essentially body and spirit. You will find all this explicitly in their writings. Do not consider at present their allegories as the gnostic truth presents them; whether they show one thing and mean another, like the dexterous athletes. Well, they say that God pervades all being; while we call Him solely Maker, and Maker by the Word. They were misled by what is said in the book of Wisdom: He pervades and passes through all by reason of His purity; Wisdom 7:24 since they did not understand that this was said of Wisdom, which was the first of the creation of God . So be it, they say.

But the philosophers , the Stoics , and Plato , and Pythagoras, nay more, Aristotle the Peripatetic, suppose the existence of matter among the first principles; and not one first principle. Let them then know that what is called matter by them, is said by them to be without quality, and without form , and more daringly said by Plato to be non- existence . And does he not say very mystically , knowing that the true and real first cause is one, in these very words: Now, then, let our opinion be so. As to the first principle or principles of the universe , or what opinion we ought to entertain about all these points, we are not now to speak, for no other cause than on account of its being difficult to explain our sentiments in accordance with the present form of discourse.

But undoubtedly that prophetic expression, Now the earth was invisible and formless, supplied them with the ground of material essence . And the introduction of chance was hence suggested to Epicurus , who misapprehended the statement, Vanity of vanities, and all is vanity. And it occurred to Aristotle to extend Providence as far as the moon from this psalm: Lord, Your mercy is in the heavens; and Your truth reaches to the clouds. For the explanation of the prophetic mysteries had not yet been revealed previous to the advent of the Lord. Punishments after death, on the other hand, and penal retribution by fire, were pilfered from the Barbarian philosophy both by all the poetic Muses and by the Hellenic philosophy .

Plato , accordingly, in the last book of the Republic , says in these express terms: Then these men fierce and fiery to look on, standing by, and hearing the sound, seized and took some aside; and binding Aridæus and the rest hand, foot, and head, and throwing them down, and flaying them, dragged them along the way, tearing their flesh with thorns. For the fiery men are meant to signify the angels , who seize and punish the wicked . Who makes, it is said, His angels spirits; His ministers flaming fire. It follows from this that the soul is immortal . For what is tortured or corrected being in a state of sensation lives, though said to suffer. Well!

These are the times of the oldest wise men and philosophers among the Greeks. And that the most of them were barbarians by extraction, and were trained among barbarians, what need is there to say? Pythagoras is shown to have been either a Tuscan or a Tyrian. And Antisthenes was a Phrygian. And Orpheus was an Odrysian or a Thracian. The most, too, show Homer to have been an Egyptian . Thales was a Phœnician by birth, and was said to have consorted with the prophets of the Egyptians ; as also Pythagoras did with the same persons , by whom he was circumcised , that he might enter the adytum and learn from the Egyptians the mystic philosophy . He held converse with the chief of the Chaldeans and the Magi ; and he gave a hint of the church, now so called, in the common hall which he maintained.

And Plato does not deny that he procured all that is most excellent in philosophy from the barbarians; and he admits that he came into Egypt . Whence, writing in the Phœdo that the philosopher can receive aid from all sides, he said: Great indeed is Greece, O Cebes, in which everywhere there are good men, and many are the races of the barbarians. Thus Plato thinks that some of the barbarians, too, are philosophers . But Epicurus , on the other hand, supposes that only Greeks can philosophise. And in the Symposium , Plato , landing the barbarians as practising philosophy with conspicuous excellence, truly says: And in many other instances both among Greeks and barbarians, whose temples reared for such sons are already numerous. And it is clear that the barbarians signally honoured their lawgivers and teachers, designating them gods.

For, according to Plato , they think that good souls , on quitting the super-celestial region, submit to come to this Tartarus; and assuming a body, share in all the ills which are involved in birth, from their solicitude for the race of men; and these make laws and publish philosophy , than which no greater boon ever came from the gods to the race of men , or will come. And as appears to me, it was in consequence of perceiving the great benefit which is conferred through wise men, that the men themselves were honoured and philosophy cultivated publicly by all the Brahmins, and the Odrysi, and the Getæ.

And such were strictly deified by the race of the Egyptians , by the Chaldeans and the Arabians, called the Happy, and those that inhabited Palestine, by not the least portion of the Persian race, and by innumerable other races besides these. And it is well known that Plato is found perpetually celebrating the barbarians, remembering that both himself and Pythagoras learned the most and the noblest of their dogmas among the barbarians. Wherefore he also called the races of the barbarians, races of barbarian philosophers , recognising, in the Phœdrus, the Egyptian king, and shows him to us wiser than Theut, whom he knew to be Hermes. But in the Charmides, it is manifest that he knew certain Thracians who were said to make the soul immortal .

But, as appears, the philosophers of the Greeks, while naming God , do not know Him. But their philosophical speculations, according to Empedocles, as passing over the tongue of the multitude, are poured out of mouths that know little of the whole. For as art changes the light of the sun into fire by passing it through a glass vessel full of water, so also philosophy , catching a spark from the divine Scripture , is visible in a few. Also, as all animals breathe the same air, some in one way, others in another, and to a different purpose; so also a considerable number of people occupy themselves with the truth , or rather with discourse concerning the truth . For they do not say anything respecting God , but expound Him by attributing their own affections to God . For they spend life in seeking the probable, not the true .

But truth is not taught by imitation, but by instruction. For it is not that we may seem good that we believe in Christ , as it is not alone for the purpose of being seen, while in the sun, that we pass into the sun. But in the one case for the purpose of being warmed; and in the other, we are compelled to be Christians in order to be excellent and good. For the kingdom belongs pre-eminently to the violent, who, from investigation, and study, and discipline, reap this fruit, that they become kings. He, then, who imitates opinion shows also preconception. When then one, having got an inkling of the subject, kindles it within in his soul by desire and study, he sets everything in motion afterwards in order to know it. For that which one does not apprehend, neither does he desire it, nor does he embrace the advantage flowing from it.

Subsequently, therefore, the Gnostic at last imitates the Lord, as far as allowed to men , having received a sort of quality akin to the Lord Himself, in order to assimilation to God . But those who are not proficient in knowledge cannot judge the truth by rule. It is not therefore possible to share in the gnostic contemplations, unless we empty ourselves of our previous notions. For the truth in regard to every object of intellect and of sense is thus simply universally declared. For instance, we may distinguish the truth of painting from that which is vulgar, and decorous music from licentious. There is, then, also a truth of philosophy as distinct from the other philosophies, and a true beauty as distinct from the spurious.

It is not then the partial truths, of which truth is predicated, but the truth itself, that we are to investigate, not seeking to learn names. For what is to be investigated respecting God is not one thing, but ten thousand. There is a difference between declaring God , and declaring things about God. And to speak generally, in everything the accidents are to be distinguished from the essence . Suffice it for me to say, that the Lord of all is God ; and I say the Lord of all absolutely, nothing being left by way of exception. Since, then, the forms of truth are two — the names and the things — some discourse of names, occupying themselves with the beauties of words: such are the philosophers among the Greeks. But we who are Barbarians have the things.

As many men drawing down the ship, cannot be called many causes, but one cause consisting of many — for each individual by himself is not the cause of the ship being drawn, but along with the rest — so also philosophy , being the search for truth , contributes to the comprehension of truth ; not as being the cause of comprehension, but a cause along with other things, and co-operator; perhaps also a joint cause . And as the several virtues are causes of the happiness of one individual; and as both the sun, and the fire, and the bath, and clothing are of one getting warm: so while truth is one, many things contribute to its investigation. But its discovery is by the Son. If then we consider, virtue is, in power, one.

But it is the case, that when exhibited in some things, it is called prudence , in others temperance , and in others manliness or righteousness. By the same analogy, while truth is one, in geometry there is the truth of geometry; in music, that of music; and in the right philosophy , there will be Hellenic truth . But that is the only authentic truth , unassailable, in which we are instructed by the Son of God . In the same way we say, that the drachma being one and the same, when given to the shipmaster, is called the fare; to the tax-gatherer, tax; to the landlord, rent; to the teacher, fees; to the seller, an earnest. And each, whether it be virtue or truth , called by the same name, is the cause of its own peculiar effect alone; and from the blending of them arises a happy life.

For we are not made happy by names alone, when we say that a good life is happiness , and that the man who is adorned in his soul with virtue is happy . But if philosophy contributes remotely to the discovery of truth , by reaching, by diverse essays, after the knowledge which touches close on the truth , the knowledge possessed by us, it aids him who aims at grasping it, in accordance with the Word, to apprehend knowledge . But the Hellenic truth is distinct from that held by us (although it has got the same name), both in respect of extent of knowledge , certainly of demonstration, divine power, and the like. For we are taught of God , being instructed in the truly sacred letters by the Son of God . Whence those, to whom we refer, influence souls not in the way we do, but by different teaching.

And if, for the sake of those who are fond of fault-finding, we must draw a distinction, by saying that philosophy is a concurrent and cooperating cause of true apprehension, being the search for truth , then we shall avow it to be a preparatory training for the enlightened man ( τοῦ γνωστικοῦ ); not assigning as the cause that which is but the joint- cause ; nor as the upholding cause , what is merely co-operative; nor giving to philosophy the place of a sine quâ non . Since almost all of us, without training in arts and sciences, and the Hellenic philosophy , and some even without learning at all, through the influence of a philosophy divine and barbarous, and by power, have through faith received the word concerning God , trained by self-operating wisdom.

On the plagiarizing of the dogmas of the philosophers from the Hebrews, we shall treat a little afterwards. But first, as due order demands, we must now speak of the epoch of Moses , by which the philosophy of the Hebrews will be demonstrated beyond all contradiction to be the most ancient of all wisdom. This has been discussed with accuracy by Tatian in his book To the Greeks , and by Cassian in the first book of his Exegetics . Nevertheless our commentary demands that we too should run over what has been said on the point.

Apion, then, the grammarian, surnamed Pleistonices, in the fourth book of The Egyptian Histories , although of so hostile a disposition towards the Hebrews, being by race an Egyptian , as to compose a work against the Jews , when referring to Amosis king of the Egyptians , and his exploits, adduces, as a witness , Ptolemy of Mendes. And his remarks are to the following effect: Amosis, who lived in the time of the Argive Inachus, overthrew Athyria, as Ptolemy of Mendes relates in his Chronology . Now this Ptolemy was a priest ; and setting forth the deeds of the Egyptian kings in three entire books, he says, that the exodus of the Jews from Egypt , under the conduct of Moses , took place while Amosis was king of Egypt . Whence it is seen that Moses flourished in the time of Inachus.

And of the Hellenic states, the most ancient is the Argolic, I mean that which took its rise from Inachus, as Dionysius of Halicarnassus teaches in his Times . And younger by forty generations than it was Attica, founded by Cecrops, who was an aboriginal of double race, as Tatian expressly says; and Arcadia, founded by Pelasgus, younger too by nine generations; and he, too, is said to have been an aboriginal. And more recent than this last by fifty-two generations, was Pthiotis, founded by Deucalion. And from the time of Inachus to the Trojan War twenty generations or more are reckoned; let us say, four hundred years and more.

And if Ctesias says that the Assyrian power is many years older than the Greek, the exodus of Moses from Egypt will appear to have taken place in the forty-second year of the Assyrian empire, in the thirty-second year of the reign of Belochus, in the time of Amosis the Egyptian , and of Inachus the Argive. And in Greece, in the time of Phoroneus, who succeeded Inachus, the flood of Ogyges occurred; and monarchy subsisted in Sicyon first in the person of Ægialeus, then of Europs, then of Telches; in Crete, in the person of Cres. For Acusilaus says that Phoroneus was the first man. Whence, too, the author of Phoronis said that he was the father of mortal men.

Now, as the Greeks represent the gods as possessing human forms, so also do they as possessing human passions . And as each of them depict their forms similar to themselves, as Xenophanes says, Ethiopians as black and apes, the Thracians ruddy and tawny; so also they assimilate their souls to those who form them: the Barbarians, for instance, who make them savage and wild; and the Greeks, who make them more civilized, yet subject to passion. Wherefore it stands to reason, that the ideas entertained of God by wicked men must be bad, and those by good men most excellent. And therefore he who is in soul truly kingly and gnostic, being likewise pious and free from superstition , is persuaded that He who alone is God is honourable , venerable, august, beneficent, the doer of good, the author of all good things, but not the cause of evil .

And respecting the Hellenic superstition we have, as I think, shown enough in the book entitled by us The Exhortation , availing ourselves abundantly of the history bearing on the point. There is no need, then, again to make a long story of what has already been clearly stated. But in as far as necessity requires to be pointed out on coming to the topic, suffice it to adduce a few out of many considerations in proof of the impiety of those who make the Divinity resemble the worst men. For either those Gods of theirs are injured by men , and are shown to be inferior to men on being injured by us; or, if not so, how is it that they are incensed at those by whom they are not injured, like a testy old wife roused to wrath ? As they say that Artemis was enraged at the Ætolians on account of Œneus.

For how, being a goddess, did she not consider that he had neglected to sacrifice , not through contempt, but out of inadvertence, or under the idea that he had sacrificed ? And Latona, arguing her case with Athene, on account of the latter being incensed at her for having brought forth in the temple, says:— Man-slaying spoils Torn from the dead you love to see. And these To you are not unclean. But you regard My parturition here a horrid thing, Though other creatures in the temple do No harm by bringing forth their young. It is natural, then, that having a superstitious dread of those irascible [gods], they imagine that all events are signs and causes of evils .

If a mouse bore through an altar built of clay, and for want of something else gnaw through an oil flask; if a cock that is being fattened crow in the evening, they determine this to be a sign of something. Of such a one Menander gives a comic description in The Superstitious Man: — A. Good luck be mine, you honoured gods! Tying my, right shoe's string, I broke it. B. Most likely, silly fool, For it was rotten, and you, niggard, you Would not buy new ones. It was a clever remark of Antiphon, who (when one regarded it as an ill omen that the sow had eaten her pigs), on seeing her emaciated through the niggardliness of the person that kept her, said, Congratulate yourself on the omen that, being so hungry, she did not eat your own children. And what wonder is it, says Bion, if the mouse, finding nothing to eat, gnaws the bag?

Such a fear , accordingly, leads to repentance and hope. Now hope is the expectation of good things, or an expectation sanguine of absent good; and favourable circumstances are assumed in order to good hope, which we have learned leads on to love . Now love turns out to be consent in what pertains to reason, life, and manners, or in brief, fellowship in life, or it is the intensity of friendship and of affection, with right reason, in the enjoyment of associates. And an associate ( ἑταῖρος ) is another self; just as we call those, brethren, who are regenerated by the same word. And akin to love is hospitality, being a congenial art devoted to the treatment of strangers. And those are strangers, to whom the things of the world are strange. For we regard as worldly those, who hope in the earth and carnal lusts .

Be not conformed, says the apostle, to this world: but be transformed in the renewal of the mind , that you may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God . Romans 12:2 Hospitality, therefore, is occupied in what is useful for strangers; and guests ( ἐπίξενοι ) are strangers ( ξένοι ); and friends are guests; and brethren are friends. Dear brother, says Homer. Philanthropy, in order to which also, is natural affection, being a loving treatment of men , and natural affection, which is a congenial habit exercised in the love of friends or domestics, follow in the train of love . And if the real man within us is the spiritual, philanthropy is brotherly love to those who participate, in the same spirit.

Natural affection, on the other hand, is the preservation of good-will, or of affection; and affection is its perfect demonstration; and to be beloved is to please in behaviour, by drawing and attracting. And persons are brought to sameness by consent, which is the knowledge of the good things that are enjoyed in common. For community of sentiment ( ὁμογνωμοσύνη ) is harmony of opinions ( συμφωνία γνωμῶν ). Let your love be without dissimulation, it is said; and abhorring what is evil , let us become attached to what is good , to brotherly love , and so on, down to If it be possible, as much as lies in you, living peaceably with all men . Then be not overcome of evil , it is said, but overcome evil with good. And the same apostle owns that he bears witness to the Jews , that they have a zeal of God , but not according to knowledge .

For, being ignorant of God's righteousness, and seeking to establish their own, they have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God . Romans 10:2-3 For they did not know and do the will of the law; but what they supposed, that they thought the law wished. And they did not believe the law as prophesying, but the bare word; and they followed through fear , not through disposition and faith . For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness, Romans 10:4 who was prophesied by the law to every one that believes . Whence it was said to them by Moses , I will provoke you to jealousy by them that are not a people; and I will anger you by a foolish nation, that is, by one that has become disposed to obedience .

1. As it was your desire, my beloved brother Theophilus, to be thoroughly informed on those topics which I put summarily before you, I have thought it right to set these matters of inquiry clearly forth to your view, drawing largely from the Holy Scriptures themselves as from a holy fountain, in order that you may not only have the pleasure of hearing them on the testimony of men , but may also be able, by surveying them in the light of (divine) authority, to glorify God in all. For this will be as a sure supply furnished you by us for your journey in this present life, so that by ready argument applying things ill understood and apprehended by most, you may sow them in the ground of your heart, as in a rich and clean soil. By these, too, you will be able to silence those who oppose and gainsay the word of salvation . Only see that you do not give these things over to unbelieving and blasphemous tongues, for that is no common danger. But impart them to pious and faithful men, who desire to live holily and righteously with fear . For it is not to no purpose that the blessed apostle exhorts Timothy, and says, O Timothy, keep that which is committed to your trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called; which some professing have erred concerning the faith . And again, You therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus . And the things that you have heard of me in many exhortations, commit to faithful men, who shall…

2. For as the blessed prophets were made, so to speak, eyes for us, they foresaw through faith the mysteries of the word, and became ministers of these things also to succeeding generations, not only reporting the past, but also announcing I the present and the future, so that the prophet might not appear to be one only for the time being, but might also predict the future for all generations, and so be reckoned a ( true ) prophet . For these fathers were furnished with the Spirit , and largely honoured by the Word Himself; and just as it is with instruments of music. so had they the Word always, like the plectrum, in union with them, and when moved by Him the prophets announced what God willed. For they spoke not of their own power (let there be no mistake as to that ), neither did they declare what pleased themselves. But First of all they were endowed with wisdom by the Word, and then again were rightly instructed in the future by means of visions. And then, when thus themselves fully convinced, they spoke those things which were revealed by God to them alone, and concealed from all others. For with what reason should the prophet be called a prophet , unless he in spirit foresaw the future? For if the prophet spoke of any chance event, he would not be a prophet then in speaking of things which were under the eye of aIl. But one who sets forth in detail things yet to be, was rightly judged a prophet . Wherefore prophets were with good reason called from the very first…

3. Do you wish then to know in what manner the Word of God , who was again the Son of God , as He was of old the Word, communicated His revelations to the blessed prophets in former times? Well, as the Word shows His compassion and His denial of all respect of persons by all the saints , He enlightens them and adapts them to that which is advantageous for us, like a skilful physician, understanding the weakness of men. And the ignorant He loves to teach, and the erring He turns again to His own true way. And by those who live by faith He is easily found; and to those of pure eye and holy heart, who desire to knock at the door, He opens immediately. For He casts away none of His servants as unworthy of the divine mysteries . He does not esteem the rich man more highly than the poor , nor does He despise the poor man for his poverty. He does not disdain the barbarian, nor does He set the eunuch aside as no man. He does not hate the female on account of the woman's act of disobedience in the beginning, nor does He reject the male on account of the man's transgression. But He seeks all, and desires to save all, wishing to make all the children of God , and calling all the saints unto one perfect man. For there is also one Son (or Servant) of God , by whom we too, receiving the regeneration through the Holy Spirit , desire to come all unto one perfect and heavenly man. Ephesians 4:13

4. For whereas the Word of God was without flesh, He took upon Himself the holy flesh by the Holy Virgin , and prepared a robe which He wove for Himself, like a bridegroom, in the sufferings of the cross , in order that by uniting His own power with our moral body, and by mixing the incorruptible with the corruptible, and the strong with the weak, He might save perishing man. The web-beam, therefore, is the pass on of the Lord upon the cross , and the warp on it is the power of the Holy Spirit , and the woof is the holy flesh wrought (woven) by the Spirit , and the thread is the grace which by the love of Christ binds and unites the two in one, and the combs or (rods) are the Word; and the workers are the patriarchs and prophets who weave the fair, long, perfect tunic for Christ; and the Word passing through these, like the combs or (rods), completes through them that which His Father wills.

Concerning the last step, plainly, of His passion you raise a doubt ; affirming that the passion of the cross was not predicted with reference to Christ , and urging, besides, that it is not credible that God should have exposed His own Son to that kind of death; because Himself said, Cursed is every one who shall have hung on a tree. But the reason of the case antecedently explains the sense of this malediction; for He says in Deuteronomy: If, moreover, (a man) shall have been (involved) in some sin incurring the judgment of death, and shall die, and you shall suspend him on a tree, his body shall not remain on the tree, but with burial you shall bury him on the very day; because cursed by God is every one who shall have been suspended on a tree; and you shall not defile the land which the Lord your God shall give you for (your) lot.

Therefore He did not maledictively adjudge Christ to this passion, but drew a distinction, that whoever, in any sin , had incurred the judgment of death, and died suspended on a tree, he should be cursed by God , because his own sins were the cause of his suspension on the tree.

On the other hand, Christ, who spoke not guile from His mouth, and who exhibited all righteousness and humility, not only (as we have above recorded it predicted of Him) was not exposed to that kind of death for his own deserts , but (was so exposed) in order that what was predicted by the prophets as destined to come upon Him through your means might be fulfilled; just as, in the Psalms , the Spirit Himself of Christ was already singing, saying, They were repaying me evil for good; Psalm 35:12 and What I had not seized I was then paying in full; Psalm 69:4 They exterminated my hands and feet; Psalm 22:16 and, They put into my drink gall, and in my thirst they slaked me with vinegar; Upon my vesture they did cast (the) lot; just as the other (outrages) which you were to commit on Him were foretold — all which He, actually and thoroughly suffering, suffered not for any evil action of His own, but that the Scriptures from the mouth of the prophets might be fulfilled.

And, of course, it had been meet that the mystery of the passion itself should be figuratively set forth in predictions; and the more incredible (that mystery ), the more likely to be a stumbling-stone, if it had been nakedly predicted; and the more magnificent, the more to be adumbrated , that the difficulty of its intelligence might seek (help from) the grace of God . Accordingly, to begin with, Isaac, when led by his father as a victim, and himself bearing his own wood, was even at that early period pointing to Christ's death; conceded, as He was, as a victim by the Father; carrying, as He did, the wood of His own passion.

Accordingly the times must be inquired into of the predicted and future nativity of the Christ , and of His passion , and of the extermination of the city of Jerusalem, that is, its devastation. For Daniel says, that both the holy city and the holy place are exterminated together with the coming Leader, and that the pinnacle is destroyed unto ruin. And so the times of the coming Christ, the Leader, Isaiah 55:4 must be inquired into, which we shall trace in Daniel; and, after computing them, shall prove Him to be come, even on the ground of the times prescribed, and of competent signs and operations of His. Which matters we prove, again, on the ground of the consequences which were ever announced as to follow His advent; in order that we may believe all to have been as well fulfilled as foreseen.

In such wise, therefore, did Daniel predict concerning Him, as to show both when and in what time He was to set the nations free; and how, after the passion of the Christ , that city had to be exterminated. For he says thus: In the first year under Darius, son of Ahasuerus, of the seed of the Medes, who reigned over the kingdom of the Chaldees, I Daniel understood in the books the number of the years....And while I was yet speaking in my prayer , behold, the man Gabriel, whom I saw in the vision in the beginning, flying; and he touched me, as it were, at the hour of the evening sacrifice , and made me understand, and spoke with me, and said, Daniel I am now come out to imbue you with understanding; in the beginning of your supplication went out a word.

And I have come to announce to you, because you are a man of desires; and ponder on the word, and understand in the vision. Seventy hebdomads have been abridged upon your commonalty, and upon the holy city, until delinquency be made inveterate, and sins sealed, and righteousness obtained by entreaty, and righteousness eternal introduced; and in order that vision and prophet may be sealed, and an holy one of holy ones anointed.

And you shall know , and thoroughly see, and understand, from the going forth of a word for restoring and rebuilding Jerusalem unto the Christ , the Leader, hebdomads (seven and an half, and ) lxii and an half: and it shall convert, and shall be built into height and entrenchment, and the times shall be renewed: and after these lxii hebdomads shall the anointing be exterminated, and shall not be; and the city and the holy place shall he exterminate together with the Leader, who is making His advent; and they shall be cut short as in a deluge, until (the) end of a war , which shall be cut short unto ruin. And he shall confirm a testament in many.

Begin we, therefore, to prove that the Birth of Christ was announced by prophets ; as Isaiah ( e.g. ,) foretells, Listen, house of David; have no petty contest with men, since God is proposing a struggle. Therefore God Himself will give you a sign; Behold, the virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and you shall call his name Emmanuel (which is, interpreted, God with us ): butter and honey shall he eat; : since, before the child learn to call father or mother, he shall receive the power of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria , in opposition to the king of the Assyrians .

Accordingly the Jews say: Let us challenge that prediction of Isaiah, and let us institute a comparison whether, in the case of the Christ who is already come, there be applicable to Him, firstly, the name which Isaiah foretold, and (secondly) the signs of it which he announced of Him. Well, then, Isaiah foretells that it behooves Him to be called Emmanuel ; and that subsequently He is to take the power of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria , in opposition to the king of the Assyrians . Now, say they, that (Christ) of yours, who has come, neither was called by that name, nor engaged in warfare. But we, on the contrary, have thought they ought to be admonished to recall to mind the context of this passage as well.

For subjoined is withal the interpretation of Emmanuel — God with us — in order that you may regard not the sound only of the name, but the sense too. For the Hebrew sound, which is Emmanuel , has an interpretation, which is, God with us. Inquire, then, whether this speech, God with us (which is Emmanuel ), be commonly applied to Christ ever since Christ's light has dawned, and I think you will not deny it. For they who out of Judaism believe in Christ , ever since their believing on Him, do, whenever they shall wish to say Emmanuel , signify that God is with us: and thus it is agreed that He who was ever predicted as Emmanuel is already come, because that which Emmanuel signifies has come — that is, God with us.

Equally are they led by the sound of the name when they so understand the power of Damascus, and the spoils of Samaria , and the kingdom of the Assyrians , as if they portended Christ as a warrior; not observing that Scripture premises, since, before the child learn to call father or mother, he shall receive the power of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria , in opposition to the king of the Assyrians . For the first step is to look at the demonstration of His age , to see whether the age there indicated can possibly exhibit the Christ as already a man , not to say a general .

Taking the similar case of fever, which is appointed a place among all other deadly and excruciating issues (of life) for destroying man: we are not surprised either that it exists, for there it is, or that it consumes man, for that is the purpose of its existence . In like manner, with respect to heresies , which are produced for the weakening and the extinction of faith , since we feel a dread because they have this power, we should first dread the fact of their existence ; for as long as they exist, they have their power; and as long as they have their power, they have their existence . But still fever, as being an evil both in its cause and in its power, as all know , we rather loathe than wonder at, and to the best of our power guard against, not having its extirpation in our power.

Some men prefer wondering at heresies , however, which bring with them eternal death and the heat of a stronger fire, for possessing this power, instead of avoiding their power when they have the means of escape: but heresies would have no power, if (men) would cease to wonder that they have such power. For it either happens that, while men wonder, they fall into a snare, or, because they are ensnared, they cherish their surprise, as if heresies were so powerful because of some truth which belonged to them. It would no doubt be a wonderful thing that evil should have any force of its own, were it not that heresies are strong in those persons who are not strong in faith .

In a combat of boxers and gladiators, generally speaking, it is not because a man is strong that he gains the victory, or loses it because he is not strong, but because he who is vanquished was a man of no strength; and indeed this very conqueror, when afterwards matched against a really powerful man, actually retires crest-fallen from the contest. In precisely the same way, heresies derive such strength as they have from the infirmities of individuals — having no strength whenever they encounter a really powerful faith .

Likewise, when extolling the centurion's faith , how incredible a thing it is, that He should confess that He had found so great a faith not even in Israel , Luke 7:1-10 to whom Israel's faith was in no way interesting! But not from the fact (here stated by Christ) could it have been of any interest to Him to approve and compare what was hitherto crude, nay, I might say, hitherto naught. Why, however, might He not have used the example of faith in another god? Because, if He had done so, He would have said that no such faith had ever had existence in Israel ; but as the case stands, He intimates that He ought to have found so great a faith in Israel , inasmuch as He had indeed come for the purpose of finding it, being in truth the God and Christ of Israel , and had now stigmatized it, only as one who would enforce and uphold it.

If, indeed, He had been its antagonist, He would have preferred finding it to be such faith , having come to weaken and destroy it rather than to approve of it. He raised also the widow's son from death. Luke 7:11-17 This was not a strange miracle . The Creator's prophets had wrought such; then why not His Son much rather? Now, so evidently had the Lord Christ introduced no other god for the working of so momentous a miracle as this, that all who were present gave glory to the Creator, saying: A great prophet is risen up among us, and God has visited His people. Luke 7:16 What God? He, of course, whose people they were, and from whom had come their prophets .

But if they glorified the Creator, and Christ (on hearing them, and knowing their meaning) refrained from correcting them even in their very act of invoking the Creator in that vast manifestation of His glory in this raising of the dead, undoubtedly He either announced no other God but Him, whom He thus permitted to be honoured in His own beneficent acts and miracles , or else how happens it that He quietly permitted these persons to remain so long in their error , especially as He came for the very purpose to cure them of their error ? But John is offended when he hears of the miracles of Christ , as of an alien god. Well, I on my side will first explain the reason of his offense, that I may the more easily explode the scandal of our heretic .

Now, that the very Lord Himself of all might, the Word and Spirit of the Father , was operating and preaching on earth, it was necessary that the portion of the Holy Spirit which, in the form of the prophetic gift, had been through John preparing the ways of the Lord, should now depart from John, and return back again of course to the Lord, as to its all-embracing original. Therefore John, being now an ordinary person, and only one of the many, was offended indeed as a man , but not because he expected or thought of another Christ as teaching or doing nothing new, for he was not even expecting such a one. Nobody will entertain doubts about any one whom (since he knows him not to exist) he has no expectation or thought of. Now John was quite sure that there was no other God but the Creator, even as a Jew, especially as a prophet .

As touching the propriety of His names, it has already been seen that both of them are suitable to Him who was the first both to announce His Christ to mankind , and to give Him the further name of Jesus . The impudence, therefore, of Marcion's Christ will be evident, when he says that many will come in his name, whereas this name does not at all belong to him , since he is not the Christ and Jesus of the Creator, to whom these names do properly appertain; and more especially when he prohibits those to be received whose very equal in imposture he is, inasmuch as he (equally with them ) comes in a name which belongs to another — unless it was his business to warn off from a mendaciously assumed name the disciples (of One) who, by reason of His name being properly given to Him, possessed also the verity thereof.

But when they shall by and by come and say, I am Christ, Luke 21:8 they will be received by you, who have already received one altogether like them. Christ, however, comes in His own name. What will you do, then, when He Himself comes who is the very Proprietor of these names, the Creator's Christ and Jesus? Will you reject Him? But how iniquitous, how unjust and disrespectful to the good God , that you should not receive Him who comes in His own name, when you have received another in His name! Now, let us see what are the signs which He ascribes to the times. Wars, I observe, and kingdom against kingdom, and nation against nation, and pestilence, and famines, and earthquakes, and fearful sights, and great signs from heaven Luke 21:9-11 — all which things are suitable for a severe and terrible God.

Now, when He goes on to say that all these things must needs come to pass, what does He represent Himself to be? The Destroyer, or the Defender of the Creator? For He affirms that these appointments of His must fully come to pass; but surely as the good God , He would have frustrated rather than advanced events so sad and terrible, if they had not been His own (decrees). But before all these, He foretells that persecutions and sufferings were to come upon them, which indeed were to turn for a testimony to them, and for their salvation . Hear what is predicted in Zechariah: The Lord of hosts shall protect them; and they shall devour them, and subdue them with sling-stones; and they shall drink their blood like wine, and they shall fill the bowls as it were of the altar.

And the Lord shall save them in that day, even His people, like sheep; because as sacred stones they roll, etc. And that you may not suppose that these predictions refer to such sufferings as await them from so many wars with strangers, consider the nature (of the sufferings). In a prophecy of wars which were to be waged with legitimate arms, no one would think of enumerating stones as weapons, which are better known in popular crowds and unarmed tumults. Nobody measures the copious streams of blood which flow in war by bowlfuls, nor limits it to what is shed upon a single altar. No one gives the name of sheep to those who fall in battle with arms in hand, and while repelling force with force, but only to those who are slain, yielding themselves up in their own place of duty and with patience, rather than fighting in self-defense.

A procedure of this kind, you say, was not necessary, because He was immediately to prove Himself the Son and the Sent One, and the Christ of God in very deed, by means of the evidence of His wonderful works . On my side, however, I have to deny that evidence simply of this sort was sufficient as a testimony to Him. He Himself afterwards deprived it of its authority, because when He declared that many would come and show great signs and wonders, so as to turn aside the very elect, and yet for all that were not to be received, He showed how rash was belief in signs and wonders, which were so very easy of accomplishment by even false christs.

Else how happens it, if He meant Himself to be approved and understood, and received on a certain evidence — I mean that of miracles — that He forbade the recognition of those others who had the very same sort of proof to show, and whose coming was to be quite as sudden and unannounced by any authority?

If, because He came before them, and was beforehand with them in displaying the signs of His mighty deeds , He therefore seized the first right to men's faith — just as the firstcomers do the first place in the baths — and so forestalled all who came after Him in that right, take care that He, too, be not caught in the condition of the later comers, if He be found to be behindhand with the Creator, who had already been made known , and had already worked miracles like Him, and like Him had forewarned men not to believe in others, even such as should come after Him.

If, therefore, to have been the first to come and utter this warning, is to bar and limit faith , He will Himself have to be condemned, because He was later in being acknowledged; and authority to prescribe such a rule about later comers will belong to the Creator alone, who could have been posterior to none.

I think that in the four preceding books I have very elaborately explained the opinions propounded by all the speculators among both Greeks and Barbarians, respecting the Divine Nature and the creation of the world; and not even have I omitted the consideration of their systems of magic. So that I have for my readers undergone no ordinary amount of toil, in my anxiety to urge many forward into a desire of learning, and into steadfastness of knowledge in regard of the truth . It remains, therefore, to hasten on to the refutation of the heresies ; but it is for the purpose of furnishing this (refutation) that we have put forward the statements already made by us. For from philosophers the heresiarchs deriving starting-points, (and) like cobblers patching together, according to their own particular interpretation, the blunders of the ancients, have advanced them as novelties to those that are capable of being deceived, as we shall prove in the following books. In the remainder (of our work), the opportunity invites us to approach the treatment of our proposed subjects, and to begin from those who have presumed to celebrate a serpent, the originator of the error (in question), through certain expressions devised by the energy of his own (ingenuity). The priests , then, and champions of the system, have been first those who have been called Naasseni, being so denominated from the Hebrew language, for the serpent is called naas (in Hebrew). Subsequently, however, they have styled…

2. Naasseni Ascribe Their System, Through Mariamne, to James the Lord's Brother; Really Traceable to the Ancient Mysteries; Their Psychology as Given in the Gospel According to Thomas; Assyrian Theory of the Soul; The Systems of the Naasseni and the Assyrians Compared; Support Drawn by the Naasseni from the Phrygian and Egyptian Mysteries; The Mysteries of Isis; These Mysteries Allegorized by the Naasseni. These are the heads of very numerous discourses which (the Naassene) asserts James the brother of the Lord handed down to Mariamne. In order, then, that these impious ( heretics ) may no longer belie Mariamne or James, or the Saviour Himself, let us come to the mystic rites (whence these have derived their figment) — to a consideration, if it seems right, of both the Barbarian and Grecian ( mysteries ) — and let us see how these ( heretics ), collecting together the secret and ineffable mysteries of all the Gentiles , are uttering falsehoods against Christ , and are making dupes of those who are not acquainted with these orgies of the Gentiles . For since the foundation of the doctrine with them is the man Adam, and they say that concerning him it has been written, Who shall declare his generation? Isaiah 53:8 learn how, partly deriving from the Gentiles the undiscoverable and diversified generation of the man, they fictitiously apply it to Christ . Now earth, say the Greeks, gave forth a man , (earth) first bearing a goodly gift, wishing to become mother not of plants…

3. Further Exposition of the Heresy of the Naasseni; Profess to Follow Homer; Acknowledge a Triad of Principles; Their Technical Names of the Triad; Support These on the Authority of Greek Poets; Allegorize Our Saviour's Miracles; The Mystery of the Samothracians; Why the Lord Chose Twelve Disciples; The Name Corybas, Used by Thracians and Phrygians, Explained; Naasseni Profess to Find Their System in Scripture; Their Interpretation of Jacob's Vision; Their Idea of the Perfect Man; The Perfect Man Called Papa By the Phrygians; The Naasseni and Phrygians on the Resurrection; The Ecstasis of St. Paul; The Mysteries of Religion as Alluded to by Christ; Interpretation of the Parable of the Sower; Allegory of the Promised Land; Comparison of the System of the Phrygians with the Statements of Scripture; Exposition of the Meaning of the Higher and Lower Eleusinian Mysteries; The Incarnation Discoverable Here According to the Naasseni. Adopting these and such like (opinions), these most marvellous Gnostics , inventors of a novel grammatical art, magnify Homer as their prophet — as one, (according to them,) who, after the mode adopted in the mysteries , announces these truths; and they mock those who are not indoctrinated into the holy Scriptures , by betraying them into such notions. They make, however, the following assertion: he who says that all things derive consistence from one, is in error ; but he who says that they are of three, is in possession of the truth , and will…

4. Further Use Made of the System of the Phrygians; Mode of Celebrating the Mysteries; The Mystery of the Great Mother; These Mysteries Have a Joint Object of Worship with the Naasseni; The Naasseni Allegorize the Scriptural Account of the Garden of Eden; The Allegory Applied to the Life of Jesus. The Phrygians, however, further assert that the father of the universe is Amygdalus, not a tree, he says, but that he is Amygdalus who previously existed ; and he having in himself the perfect fruit, as it were, throbbing and moving in the depth, rent his breasts, and produced his now invisible, and nameless, and ineffable child. respecting whom we shall speak. For the word Amyxai signifies, as it were, to burst and sever through, as he says (happens) in the case of inflamed bodies, and which have in themselves any tumour; and when doctors have cut this, they call it Amychai. In this way, he says, the Phrygians call him Amygdalus, from which proceeded and was born the Invisible (One), by whom all things were made, and nothing was made without Him. And the Phrygians say that what has been thence produced is Syrictas (piper), because the Spirit that is born is harmonious. For God , he says, is Spirit; wherefore, he affirms, neither in this mountain do the true worshippers worship, nor in Jerusalem, but in spirit. For the adoration of the perfect ones, he says, is spiritual, not carnal. The Spirit, however, he says, is there where likewise the Father is named, and the Son is there…

1. Some such opinions, we believe , ought to be entertained regarding the divine promises, when we direct our understanding to the contemplation of that eternal and infinite world, and gaze on its ineffable joy and blessedness. But as the preaching of the Church includes a belief in a future and just judgment of God , which belief incites and persuades men to a good and virtuous life, and to an avoidance of sin by all possible means; and as by this it is undoubtedly indicated that it is within our own power to devote ourselves either to a life that is worthy of praise, or to one that is worthy of censure, I therefore deem it necessary to say a few words regarding the freedom of the will, seeing that this topic has been treated by very many writers in no mean style. And that we may ascertain more easily what is the freedom of the will, let us inquire into the nature of will and of desire.

2. Of all things which move, some have the cause of their motion within themselves, others receive it from without: and all those things only are moved from without which are without life, as stones, and pieces of wood, and whatever things are of such a nature as to be held together by the constitution of their matter alone, or of their bodily substance. That view must indeed be dismissed which would regard the dissolution of bodies by corruption as motion, for it has no bearing upon our present purpose. Others, again, have the cause of motion in themselves, as animals, or trees, and all things which are held together by natural life or soul ; among which some think ought to be classed the veins of metals. Fire, also, is supposed to be the cause of its own motion, and perhaps also springs of water. And of those things which have the causes of their motion in themselves, some are said to be moved out of themselves, others by themselves. And they so distinguish them, because those things are moved out of themselves which are alive indeed, but have no soul ; whereas those things which have a soul are moved by themselves, when a phantasy, i.e., a desire or incitement, is presented to them, which excites them to move towards something. Finally, in certain things endowed with a soul , there is such a phantasy, i.e., a will or feeling, as by a kind of natural instinct calls them forth, and arouses them to orderly and regular motion; as we see to be the case with spiders, which are…

3. But since a rational animal not only has within itself these natural movements, but has moreover, to a greater extent than other animals, the power of reason, by which it can judge and determine regarding natural movements, and disapprove and reject some, while approving and adopting others, so by the judgment of this reason may the movements of men be governed and directed towards a commendable life. And from this it follows that, since the nature of this reason which is in man has within itself the power of distinguishing between good and evil , and while distinguishing possesses the faculty of selecting what it has approved, it may justly be deemed worthy of praise in choosing what is good , and deserving of censure in following that which is base or wicked . This indeed must by no means escape our notice, that in some dumb animals there is found a more regular movement than in others, as in hunting-dogs or war-horses, so that they may appear to some to be moved by a kind of rational sense. But we must believe this to be the result not so much of reason as of some natural instinct, largely bestowed for purposes of that kind. Now, as we had begun to remark, seeing that such is the nature of a rational animal, some things may happen to us human beings from without; and these, coming in contact with our sense of sight, or hearing, or any other of our senses, may incite and arouse us to good movements, or the contrary; and seeing they come to us from an external source, it…

4. If any one now were to say that those things which happen to us from an external cause , and call forth our movements, are of such a nature that it is impossible to resist them, whether they incite us to good or evil , let the holder of this opinion turn his attention for a little upon himself, and carefully inspect the movements of his own mind , unless he has discovered already, that when an enticement to any desire arises, nothing is accomplished until the assent of the soul is gained, and the authority of the mind has granted indulgence to the wicked suggestion; so that a claim might seem to be made by two parties on certain probable grounds as to a judge residing within the tribunals of our heart, in order that, after the statement of reasons, the decree of execution may proceed from the judgment of reason. For, to take an illustration: if, to a man who has determined to live continently and chastely, and to keep himself free from all pollution with women , a woman should happen to present herself, inciting and alluring him to act contrary to his purpose, that woman is not a complete and absolute cause or necessity of his transgressing, since it is in his power, by remembering his resolution, to bridle the incitements to lust , and by the stern admonitions of virtue to restrain the pleasure of the allurement that solicits him; so that, all feeling of indulgence being driven away, his determination may remain firm and enduring. Finally, if to any men of learning,…

( The translation from the Greek is designedly literal, that the difference between the original and the paraphrase of Rufinus may be more clearly seen. )

1. Since, in our investigation of matters of such importance, not satisfied with the common opinions, and with the clear evi­dence of visible things, we take in addition, for the proof of our statements, testimonies from what are believed by us to be divine writings, viz., from that which is called the Old Testament , and that which is styled the New, and endeavour by reason to con­firm our faith ; and as we have not yet spoken of the Scriptures as divine, come and let us, as if by way of an epitome, treat of a few points respecting them, lay­ing down those reasons which lead us to regard them as divine writings. And be­fore making use of the words of the writ­ings themselves, and of the things which are exhibited in them, we must make the following statement regarding Moses and Jesus Christ — the lawgiver of the Hebrews, and the Introducer of the sav­ing doctrines according to Christianity . For, although there have been very many legislators among the Greeks and Barbari­ans, and teachers who announced opinions which professed to be the truth , we have heard of no legislator who was able to imbue other nations with a zeal for the reception of his words; and although those who professed to philosophize about truth brought forward a great apparatus of apparent logical demonstration, no one has been able to impress what was deemed by him the truth upon other na­tions, or even on any number of persons worth mentioning in a single nation. And yet not only would the legislators…

2. And if we observe how powerful the word has become in a very few years, notwithstanding that against those who acknowledged Christianity conspiracies were formed, and some of them on its account put to death , and others of them lost their property, and that, notwithstand­ing the small number of its teachers, it was preached everywhere throughout the world, so that Greeks and Barbarians, wise and foolish, gave themselves up to the worship that is through Jesus, we have no difficulty in saying that the result is be­yond any human power, Jesus having taught with all authority and persuasive­ness that His word should not be over­come; so that we may rightly regard as oracular responses those utterances of His, such as, You shall be brought before governors and kings for My sake, for a testimony against them and the Gen­tiles; and, Many shall say unto Me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not eaten in Your name, and drunk in Your name, and in Your name cast out devils? And I shall say unto them, Depart from Me, you work­ers of iniquity, I never knew you. Now it was perhaps (once) probable that, in uttering these words, He spoke them in vain, so that they were not true ; but when that which was delivered with so much authority has come to pass, it shows that God , having really become man, delivered to men the doctrines of salvation .

3. And what need is there to mention also that it was predicted of Christ that then would the rulers fail from Judah, and the leaders from his thighs, when He came for whom it is reserved (the king­dom, namely); and that the expectation of the Gentiles should dwell in the land? For it is clearly manifest from the history, and from what is seen at the present day, that from the times of Jesus there were no longer any who were called kings of the Jews ; all those Jewish institutions on which they prided themselves — I mean those arrangements relating to the temple and the altar, and the offering of the service, and the robes of the high priest ­having been destroyed. For the prophecy was fulfilled which said, The children of Israel shall sit many days, there being no king, nor ruler, nor sacrifice , nor altar, nor priesthood , nor responses. And these predictions we employ to answer those who, in their perplexity as to the words spoken in Genesis by Jacob to Judah, as­sert that the Ethnarch, being of the race of Judah, is the ruler of the people, and that there will not fail some of his seed, until the advent of that Christ whom they figure to their imagination. But if the children of Israel are to sit many days without a king, or ruler, or altar, or priest­hood, or responses; and if, since the temple was destroyed, there exists no longer sacrifice , nor altar, nor priesthood , it is manifest that the ruler has failed out of Judah, and the leader from between his thighs. And…

1. But as it is not sufficient, in the discussion of matters of such importance, to entrust the decision to the human senses and to the human understanding, and to pronounce on things invisible as if they were seen by us, we must, in order to establish the positions which we have laid down, adduce the testimony of Holy Scripture . And that this testimony may produce a sure and unhesitating belief, either with regard to what we have still to advance, or to what has been already stated, it seems necessary to show, in the first place, that the Scriptures themselves are divine, i.e., were inspired by the Spirit of God . We shall therefore with all possible brevity draw forth from the Holy Scriptures themselves, such evidence on this point as may produce upon us a suitable impression, (making our quotations) from Moses , the first legislator of the Hebrew nation, and from the words of Jesus Christ , the Author and Chief of the Christian religious system. For although there have been numerous legislators among the Greeks and Barbarians, and also countless teachers and philosophers who professed to declare the truth , we do not remember any legislator who was able to produce in the minds of foreign nations an affection and a zeal (for him) such as led them either voluntarily to adopt his laws , or to defend them with all the efforts of their mind. No one, then, has been able to introduce and make known what seemed to himself the truth , among, I do not say many foreign nations, but…

2. And we may see, moreover, how that religion itself grew up in a short time, making progress by the punishment and death of its worshippers, by the plundering of their goods, and by the tortures of every kind which they endured; and this result is the more surprising, that even the teachers of it themselves neither were men of skill, nor very numerous; and yet these words are preached throughout the whole world, so that Greeks and Barbarians, wise and foolish, adopt the doctrines of the Christian religion . From which it is no doubtful inference, that it is not by human power or might that the words of Jesus Christ come to prevail with all faith and power over the understandings and souls of all men . For, that these results were both predicted by Him, and established by divine answers proceeding from Him, is clear from His own words: You shall be brought before governors and kings for My sake, for a testimony against them and the Gentiles . And again: This Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached among all nations. And again: Many shall say to Me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not eaten and drunk in Your name, and in Your name cast out devils? And I will say unto them, Depart from Me, you workers of iniquity, I never knew you. If these sayings, indeed, had been so uttered by Him, and yet if these predictions had not been fulfilled, they might perhaps appear to be untrue, and not to possess any authority. But now, when His declarations do pass into fulfilment, seeing they…

3. What, then, are we to say of this, which the prophets had beforehand foretold of Him, that princes would not cease from Judah, nor leaders from be­tween his thighs, until He should come for whom it has been reserved (viz., the kingdom), and until the expectation of the Gentiles should come? For it is most distinctly evident from the history itself, from what is clearly seen at the present day, that from the times of Christ onwards there were no kings among the Jews . Nay, even all those objects of Jewish pride , of which they vaunted so much, and in which they exulted, whether regarding the beauty of the temple or the ornaments of the altar, and all those sacerdotal fillets and robes of the high priests , were all destroyed together. For the proph­ecy was fulfilled which had declared, For the chil­dren of Israel shall abide many days without king and prince: there shall be no victim, nor altar, nor priesthood , nor answers. These testimonies, ac­cordingly, we employ against those who seem to assert that what is spoken in Genesis by Jacob refers to Judah; and who say that there still remains a prince of the race of Judah — he, viz., who is the prince of their nation, whom they style Patriarch — and that there cannot fail (a ruler) of his seed, who will re­main until the advent of that Christ whom they pic­ture to themselves. But if the prophet's words be true , when he says, The children of Israel shall abide many days without king, without prince; and there shall be no…

4. In the song of Deuteronomy, also, it is pro­phetically declared that, on account of the sins of the former people, there was to be an election of a fool­ish nation — no other, certainly, than that which was brought about by Christ; for thus the words run: They have moved Me to anger with their images, and I will stir them up to jealousy; I will arouse them to anger against a foolish nation. We may therefore evidently see how the Hebrews, who are said to have excited God's anger by means of those ( idols ), which are no gods, and to have aroused His wrath by their images, were themselves also excited to jealousy by means of a foolish nation, which God has chosen by the advent of Jesus Christ and His disciples . For the following is the language of the apostle: For you see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men among you after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble (are called): but God has chosen the foolish things of the world, and the things which are not, to destroy the things which formerly existed . Carnal Israel , therefore, should not boast; for such is the term used by the apostle: No flesh, I say, should glory in the presence of God .

1. On the Freedom of the Will, With an Explanation and Interpretation of Those Statements of Scripture Which Appear to Nullify It.

1. Since in the preaching of the Church there is included the doctrine respecting a just judgment of God , which, when believed to be true , incites those who hear it to live virtuously, and to shun sin by all means, inasmuch as they manifestly acknowledge that things worthy of praise and blame are within our own power, come and let us discuss by themselves a few points regarding the freedom of the will — a question of all others most necessary. And that we may understand what the freedom of the will is, it is necessary to unfold the conception of it, that this being declared with precision, the subject may be placed before us.

2. Of things that move, some have the cause of their motion within themselves; others, again, are moved only from without. Now only portable things are moved from without, such as pieces of wood, and stones, and all matter that is held together by their constitution alone. And let that view be removed from consideration which calls the flux of bodies motion, since it is not needed for our present purpose. But animals and plants have the cause of their motion within themselves, and in general whatever is held together by nature and a soul , to which class of things they say that metals also belong. And besides these, fire too is self-moved, and perhaps also fountains of water. Now, of those things which have the cause of their movement within themselves, some, they say, are moved out of themselves, others from themselves: things without life, out of themselves; animate things, from themselves. For animate things are moved from themselves, a phantasy springing up in them which incites to effort. And again, in certain animals phantasies are formed which call forth an effort, the nature of the phantasy stirring up the effort in an orderly manner, as in the spider is formed the phantasy of weaving; and the attempt to weave follows, the nature of its phantasy inciting the insect in an orderly manner to this alone. And besides its phantasial nature, nothing else is believed to belong to the insect. And in the bee there is formed the phantasy to produce wax.

3. The rational animal, however, has, in addition to its phantasial nature, also reason, which judges the phantasies, and disapproves of some and accepts others, in order that the animal may be led according to them. Therefore, since there are in the nature of reason aids towards the contemplation of virtue and vice , by following which, after beholding good and evil , we select the one and avoid the other, we are deserving of praise when we give ourselves to the practice of virtue , and censurable when we do the reverse. We must not, however, be ignorant that the greater part of the nature assigned to all things is a varying quantity among animals, both in a greater and a less degree; so that the instinct in hunting-dogs and in war-horses approaches somehow, so to speak, to the faculty of reason. Now, to fall under some one of those external causes which stir up within us this phantasy or that, is confessedly not one of those things that are dependent upon ourselves; but to determine that we shall use the occurrence in this way or differently, is the prerogative of nothing else than of the reason within us, which, as occasion offers, arouses us towards efforts inciting to what is virtuous and becoming, or turns us aside to what is the reverse.

An excellent thing has silence proved itself in many another person on many an occasion, and at present it befits myself, too, most especially, who with or without purpose may keep the door of my lips, and feel constrained to be silent. For I am unpractised and unskilled in those beautiful and elegant addresses which are spoken or composed in a regular and unbroken train, in select and well-chosen phrases and words; and it may be that I am less apt by nature to cultivate successfully this graceful and truly Grecian art.

Besides, it is now eight years since I chanced myself to utter or compose any speech, whether long or short; neither in that period have I heard any other compose or utter anything in private, or deliver in public any laudatory or controversial orations, with the exception of those admirable men who have embraced the noble study of philosophy , and who care less for beauty of language and elegance of expression. For, attaching only a secondary importance to the words, they aim, with all exactness, at investigating and making known the things themselves, precisely as they are severally constituted. Not indeed, in my opinion, that they: do not desire, but rather that they do greatly desire, to clothe the noble and accurate results of their thinking in noble and comely language.

Yet it may be that they are not able so lightly to put forth this sacred and godlike power (faculty) in the exercise of its own proper conceptions, and at the same time to practise a mode of discourse eloquent in its terms, and thus to comprehend in one and the same mind — and that, too, this little mind of man — two accomplishments, which are the gifts of two distinct persons , and which are, in truth , most contrary to each other. For silence is indeed the friend and helpmeet of thought and invention. But if one aims at readiness of speech and beauty of discourse, he will get at them by no other discipline than the study of words, and their constant practice.

Moreover, another branch of learning occupies my mind completely, and the mouth binds the tongue if I should desire to make any speech, however brief, with the voice of the Greeks; I refer to those admirable laws of our sages by which the affairs of all the subjects of the Roman Empire are now directed, and which are neither composed nor learned without difficulty. And these are wise and exact in themselves, and manifold and admirable, and, in a word, most thoroughly Grecian; and they are expressed and committed to us in the Roman tongue, which is a wonderful and magnificent sort of language, and one very aptly conformable to royal authority, but still difficult to me. Nor could it be otherwise with me, even though I might say that it was my desire that it should be.

I must express my surprise that Celsus should class the Odrysians, and Samothracians, and Eleusinians, and Hyperboreans among the most ancient and learned nations, and should not deem the Jews worthy of a place among such, either for their learning or their antiquity, although there are many treatises in circulation among the Egyptians , and Phœnicians, and Greeks, which testify to their existence as an ancient people, but which I have considered it unnecessary to quote.

For any one who chooses may read what Flavius Josephus has recorded in his two books, On the Antiquity of the Jews , where he brings together a great collection of writers, who bear witness to the antiquity of the Jewish people; and there exists the Discourse to the Greeks of Tatian the younger, in which with very great learning he enumerates those historians who have treated of the antiquity of the Jewish nation and of Moses . It seems, then, to be not from a love of truth , but from a spirit of hatred , that Celsus makes these statements, his object being to asperse the origin of Christianity , which is connected with Judaism .

Nay, he styles the Galactophagi of Homer, and the Druids of the Gauls, and the Getæ, most learned and ancient tribes, on account of the resemblance between their traditions and those of the Jews , although I know not whether any of their histories survive; but the Hebrews alone, as far as in him lies, he deprives of the honour both of antiquity and learning. And again, when making a list of ancient and learned men who have conferred benefits upon their contemporaries (by their deeds ), and upon posterity by their writings, he excluded Moses from the number; while of Linus, to whom Celsus assigns a foremost place in his list, there exists neither laws nor discourses which produced a change for the better among any tribes; whereas a whole nation, dispersed throughout the entire world, obey the laws of Moses .

Consider, then, whether it is not from open malevolence that he has expelled Moses from his catalogue of learned men, while asserting that Linus, and Musæus, and Orpheus, and Pherecydes, and the Persian Zoroaster, and Pythagoras, discussed these topics, and that their opinions were deposited in books, and have thus been preserved down to the present time. And it is intentionally also that he has omitted to take notice of the myth, embellished chiefly by Orpheus, in which the gods are described as affected by human weaknesses and passions .

For the law and the prophets are full of marvels similar to those recorded of Jesus at His baptism , viz., regarding the dove and the voice from heaven. And I think the wonders wrought by Jesus are a proof of the Holy Spirit's having then appeared in the form of a dove, although Celsus, from a desire to cast discredit upon them, alleges that He performed only what He had learned among the Egyptians . And I shall refer not only to His miracles , but, as is proper, to those also of the apostles of Jesus. For they could not without the help of miracles and wonders have prevailed on those who heard their new doctrines and new teachings to abandon their national usages, and to accept their instructions at the danger to themselves even of death.

And there are still preserved among Christians traces of that Holy Spirit which appeared in the form of a dove. They expel evil spirits , and perform many cures, and foresee certain events, according to the will of the Logos . And although Celsus, or the Jew whom he has introduced, may treat with mockery what I am going to say, I shall say it nevertheless — that many have been converted to Christianity as if against their will, some sort of spirit having suddenly transformed their minds from a hatred of the doctrine to a readiness to die in its defense, and having appeared to them either in a waking vision or a dream of the night.

Many such instances have we known , which, if we were to commit to writing, although they were seen and witnessed by ourselves, we should afford great occasion for ridicule to unbelievers, who would imagine that we, like those whom they suppose to have invented such things, had ourselves also done the same. But God is witness of our conscientious desire, not by false statements, but by testimonies of different kinds, to establish the divinity of the doctrine of Jesus.

And as it is a Jew who is perplexed about the account of the Holy Spirit having descended upon Jesus in the form of a dove, we would say to him, Sir, who is it that says in Isaiah, 'And now the Lord has sent me and His Spirit.' In which sentence, as the meaning is doubtful — viz., whether the Father and the Holy Spirit sent Jesus, or the Father sent both Christ and the Holy Spirit — the latter is correct. For, because the Saviour was sent, afterwards the Holy Spirit was sent also, that the prediction of the prophet might be fulfilled; and as it was necessary that the fulfilment of the prophecy should be known to posterity, the disciples of Jesus for that reason committed the result to writing.

After this, Celsus, without condemning circumcision as practised by the Jews , asserts that this usage was derived from the Egyptians ; thus believing the Egyptians rather than Moses , who says that Abraham was the first among men who practised the rite. And it is not Moses alone who mentions the name of Abraham , assigning to him great intimacy with God ; but many also of those who give themselves to the practice of the conjuration of evil spirits , employ in their spells the expression God of Abraham , pointing out by the very name the friendship (that existed ) between that just man and God . And yet, while making use of the phrase God of Abraham , they do not know who Abraham is!

And the same remark applies to Isaac, and Jacob, and Israel ; which names, although confessedly Hebrew, are frequently introduced by those Egyptians who profess to produce some wonderful result by means of their knowledge . The rite of circumcision , however, which began with Abraham , and was discontinued by Jesus, who desired that His disciples should not practise it, is not before us for explanation; for the present occasion does not lead us to speak of such things, but to make an effort to refute the charges brought against the doctrine of the Jews by Celsus, who thinks that he will be able the more easily to establish the falsity of Christianity , if, by assailing its origin in Judaism , he can show that the latter also is untrue.

After this, Celsus next asserts that Those herdsmen and shepherds who followed Moses as their leader, had their minds deluded by vulgar deceits, and so supposed that there was one God. Let him show, then, how, after this irrational departure, as he regards it, of the herdsmen and shepherds from the worship of many gods, he himself is able to establish the multiplicity of deities that are found among the Greeks, or among those other nations that are called Barbarian. Let him establish, therefore, the existence of Mnemosyne, the mother of the Muses by Zeus; or of Themis, the parent of the Hours; or let him prove that the ever naked Graces can have a real, substantial existence .

But he will not be able to show, from any actions of theirs, that these fictitious representations of the Greeks, which have the appearance of being invested with bodies, are (really) gods. And why should the fables of the Greeks regarding the gods be true , any more than those of the Egyptians for example, who in their language know nothing of a Mnemosyne, mother of the nine Muses; nor of a Themis, parent of the Hours; nor of a Euphrosyne, one of the Graces; nor of any other of these names?

How much more manifest (and how much better than all these inventions!) is it that, convinced by what we see, in the admirable order of the world, we should worship the Maker of it as the one Author of one effect, and which, as being wholly in harmony with itself, cannot on that account have been the work of many makers; and that we should believe that the whole heaven is not held together by the movements of many souls , for one is enough, which bears the whole of the non-wandering sphere from east to west, and embraces within it all things which the world requires, and which are not self-existing! For all are parts of the world, while God is no part of the whole. But God cannot be imperfect, as a part is imperfect.

And perhaps profounder consideration will show, that as God is not a part, so neither is He properly the whole, since the whole is composed of parts; and reason will not allow us to believe that the God who is over all is composed of parts, each one of which cannot do what all the other parts can.

Jesus, accordingly, in turning away the minds of His disciples , not merely from giving heed to sorcerers in general, and those who profess in any other manner to work miracles — for His disciples did not need to be so warned — but from such as gave themselves out as the Christ of God , and who tried by certain apparent miracles to gain over to them the disciples of Jesus , said in a certain passage: Then, if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not. For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets , and shall show great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect. Behold, I have told you before. Wherefore, if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert , go not forth; behold, he is in the secret chambers, believe it not.

For as the lightning comes out of the east, and shines even to the west, so also shall the coming of the Son of man be. And in another passage: Many will say unto Me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not eaten and drunk in Your name, and by Your name have cast out demons , and done many wonderful works ? And then will I say unto them, Depart from Me, because you are workers of iniquity. But Celsus, wishing to assimilate the miracles of Jesus to the works of human sorcery, says in express terms as follows: O light and truth ! He distinctly declares, with his own voice, as you yourselves have recorded, that there will come to you even others, employing miracles of a similar kind, who are wicked men, and sorcerers; and he calls him who makes use of such devices, one Satan .

So that Jesus himself does not deny that these works at least are not at all divine, but are the acts of wicked men; and being compelled by the force of truth , he at the same time not only laid open the doings of others, but convicted himself of the same acts. Is it not, then, a miserable inference, to conclude from the same works that the one is God and the other sorcerers? Why ought the others, because of these acts, to be accounted wicked rather than this man, seeing they have him as their witness against himself? For he has himself acknowledged that these are not the works of a divine nature, but the inventions of certain deceivers, and of thoroughly wicked men.

Observe, now, whether Celsus is not clearly convicted of slandering the Gospel by such statements, since what Jesus says regarding those who are to work signs and wonders is different from what this Jew of Celsus alleges it to be. For if Jesus had simply told His disciples to be on their guard against those who professed to work miracles , without declaring what they would give themselves out to be, then perhaps there would have been some ground for his suspicion.

All the arguments, indeed, which this Jew of Celsus advances against those who believe in Jesus, may, by parity of reasoning, be urged as ground of accusation against Moses : so that there is no difference in asserting that the sorcery practised by Jesus and that by Moses were similar to each other, — both of them, so far as the language of this Jew of Celsus is concerned, being liable to the same charge; as, e.g., when this Jew says of Christ , But, O light and truth ! Jesus with his own voice expressly declares, as you yourselves have recorded, that there will appear among you others also, who will perform miracles like mine, but who are wicked men and sorcerers, some one, either Greek or Egyptian , or any other party who disbelieved the Jew, might say respecting Moses , But, O light and truth !

Moses with his own voice expressly declares, as you also have recorded, that there will appear among you others also, who will perform miracles like mine, but who are wicked men and sorcerers. For it is written in your law, 'If there arise among you a prophet , or a dreamer of dreams, and gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or wonder come to pass whereof he spoke unto you, saying, Let us go after other gods which you have not known , and let us serve them; you shall not hearken to the words of that prophet , or dreamer of dreams,' etc. Again, perverting the words of Jesus , he says, And he terms him who devises such things, one Satan ; while one, applying this to Moses , might say, And he terms him who devises such things, a prophet who dreams.

And as this Jew asserts regarding Jesus, that even he himself does not deny that these works have in them nothing of divinity, but are the acts of wicked men; so any one who disbelieves the writings of Moses might say, quoting what has been already said, the same thing, viz., that, even Moses does not deny that these works have in them nothing of divinity, but are the acts of wicked men. And he will do the same thing also with respect to this: Being compelled by the force of truth , Moses at the same time both exposed the doings of others, and convicted himself of the same. And when the Jew says, Is it not a wretched inference from the same acts, to conclude that the one is a God , and the others sorcerers?

one might object to him, on the ground of those words of Moses already quoted, Is it not then a wretched inference from the same acts, to conclude that the one is a prophet and servant of God , and the others sorcerers? But when, in addition to those comparisons which I have already mentioned, Celsus, dwelling upon the subject, adduces this also: Why from these works should the others be accounted wicked , rather than this man, seeing they have him as a witness against himself? — we, too, shall adduce the following, in addition to what has been already said: Why, from those passages in which Moses forbids us to believe those who exhibit signs and wonders, ought we to consider such persons as wicked , rather than Moses , because he calumniates some of them in respect of their signs and wonders?

Celsus next proceeds to say, that the system of doctrine, viz., Judaism , upon which Christianity depends, was barbarous in its origin. And with an appearance of fairness, he does not reproach Christianity because of its origin among barbarians, but gives the latter credit for their ability in discovering (such) doctrines. To this, however, he adds the statement, that the Greeks are more skilful than any others in judging, establishing, and reducing to practice the discoveries of barbarous nations.

Now this is our answer to his allegations, and our defense of the truths contained in Christianity , that if any one were to come from the study of Grecian opinions and usages to the Gospel , he would not only decide that its doctrines were true , but would by practice establish their truth , and supply whatever seemed wanting, from a Grecian point of view, to their demonstration, and thus confirm the truth of Christianity . We have to say, moreover, that the Gospel has a demonstration of its own, more divine than any established by Grecian dialectics.

And this diviner method is called by the apostle the manifestation of the Spirit and of power: of the Spirit , on account of the prophecies, which are sufficient to produce faith in any one who reads them, especially in those things which relate to Christ; and of power, because of the signs and wonders which we must believe to have been performed, both on many other grounds, and on this, that traces of them are still preserved among those who regulate their lives by the precepts of the Gospel .

1. I had frequently, Demetrianus, treated with contempt your railing and noisy clamour with sacrilegious mouth and impious words against the one and true God , thinking it more modest and better, silently to scorn the ignorance of a mistaken man, than by speaking to provoke the fury of a senseless one. Neither did I do this without the authority of the divine teaching, since it is written, Speak not in the ears of a fool, lest when he hear you he should despise the wisdom of your words; Proverbs 23:9 and again, Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you also be like him. Proverbs 26:4 And we are, moreover, bidden to keep what is holy within our own knowledge , and not expose it to be trodden down by swine and dogs, since the Lord speaks, saying, Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you. Matthew 7:6 For when you used often to come to me with the desire of contradicting rather than with the wish to learn, and preferred impudently to insist on your own views, which you shouted with noisy words, to patiently listening to mine, it seethed to me foolish to contend with you; since it would he an easier and slighter thing to restrain the angry waves of a turbulent sea with shouts, than to check your madness by arguments. Assuredly it would be both a vain and ineffectual labour to offer light to a blind man, discourse to a deaf one, or wisdom to a brute; since neither…

2. In consideration of this, I have frequently held my tongue, and overcome an impatient man with patience; since I could neither teach an unteachable man, nor check an impious one with religion, nor restrain a frantic man with gentleness. But yet, when you say that very many are complaining that to us it is ascribed that wars arise more frequently, that plague, that famines rage, and that long droughts are suspending the showers and rains, it is not fitting that I should be silent any longer, lest my silence should begin to be attributed to mistrust rather than to modesty; and while I am treating the false charges with contempt, I may seem to be acknowledging the crime. I reply, therefore, as well to you, Demetrianus, as to others whom perhaps you have stirred up, and many of whom, by sowing hatred against us with malicious words. you have made your own partisans, from the budding forth of your own root and origin, who, however, I believe , will admit the reasonableness of my discourse; for he who is moved to evil by the deception of a lie , will much more easily be moved to good by the cogency of truth .

3. You have said that all these things are caused by us, and that to us ought to be attributed the misfortunes wherewith the world is now shaken and distressed, because your gods are not worshipped by us. And in this behalf, since you are ignorant of divine knowledge , and a stranger to the truth , you must in the first place know this, that the world has now grown old, and does not abide in that strength in which it formerly stood; nor has it that vigour and force which it formerly possessed. This, even were we silent, and if we alleged no proofs from the sacred Scriptures and from the divine declarations, the world itself is now announcing, and, bearing witness to its decline by the testimony of its failing estate. In the winter there is not such an abundance of showers for nourishing the seeds; in the summer the sun has not so much heat for cherishing the harvest; nor in the spring season are the grain-fields so joyous; nor are the autumnal seasons so fruitful in their leafy products. The layers of marble are dug out in less quantity from the disembowelled and wearied mountains; the diminished quantities of gold and silver suggest the early exhaustion of the metals, and the impoverished veins are straitened and decreased day by day; the husbandman is failing in the fields, the sailor at sea, the soldier in the camp, innocence in the market, justice in the tribunal, concord in friendships, skilfulness in the arts, discipline in morals. Think you that the substantial…

4. You impute it to the Christians that everything is decaying as the world grows old. What if old men should charge it on the Christians that they grow less strong in their old age; that they no longer, as formerly, have the same facilities, in the hearing of their ears, in the swiftness of their feet, in the keenness of their eyes, in the vigour of their strength, in the freshness of their organic powers, in the fullness of their limbs, and that although once the life of men endured beyond the age of eight and nine hundred years, it can now scarcely attain to its hundredth year? We see grey hairs in boys — the hair fails before it begins to grow; and life does not cease in old age, but it begins with old age. Thus, even at its very commencement, birth hastens to its close; Wisdom 5:13 thus, whatever is now born degenerates with the old age of the world itself; so that no one ought to wonder that everything begins to fail in the world, when the whole world itself is already in process of failing, and in its end.

1. Since I have found some who deem themselves very wise in their opinions, acting as if they were inspired, and announcing with all the authority of an oracle, that from the time when the Christian people began to exist in the world the universe has gone to ruin, that the human race has been visited with ills of many kinds, that even the very gods, abandoning their accustomed charge, in virtue of which they were wont in former days to regard with interest our affairs, have been driven from the regions of earth — I have resolved, so far as my capacity and my humble power of language will allow, to oppose public prejudice, and to refute calumnious accusations; lest, on the one hand, those persons should imagine that they are declaring some weighty matter, when they are merely retailing vulgar rumours; and on the other, lest, if we refrain from such a contest, they should suppose that they have gained a cause , lost by its own inherent demerits, not abandoned by the silence of its advocates. For I should not deny that that charge is a most serious one, and that we fully deserve the hatred attaching to public enemies, if it should appear that to us are attributable causes by reason of which the universe has deviated from its laws , the gods have been driven far away, and such swarms of miseries have been inflicted on the generations of men.

2. Let us therefore examine carefully the real significance of that opinion, and what is the nature of the allegation; and laying aside all desire for wrangling, by which the calm view of subjects is wont to be dimmed, and even intercepted, let us test, by fairly balancing the considerations on both sides, whether that which is alleged be true . For it will assuredly be proved by an array of convincing arguments, not that we are discovered to be more impious, but that they themselves are convicted of that charge who profess to be worshippers of the deities, and devotees of an antiquated superstition . And, in the first place, we ask this of them in friendly and calm language: Since the name of the Christian religion began to be used on the earth, what phenomenon, unseen before, unheard of before, what event contrary to the laws established in the beginning, has the so-called Nature of Things felt or suffered? Have these first elements, from which it is agreed that all things were compacted, been altered into elements of an opposite character? Has the fabric of this machine and mass of the universe , by which we are all covered, and in which we are held enclosed, relaxed in any part, or broken up? Has the revolution of the globe, to which we are accustomed, departing from the rate of its primal motion, begun either to move too slowly, or to be hurried onward in headlong rotation? Have the stars begun to rise in the west, and the setting of the constellations to take place in…

3. Since this is so, and since no strange influence has suddenly manifested itself to break the continuous course of events by interrupting their succession, what is the ground of the allegation, that a plague was brought upon the earth after the Christian religion came into the world, and after it revealed the mysteries of hidden truth ? But pestilences, say my opponents, and droughts, wars , famines, locusts, mice, and hailstones, and other hurtful things, by which the property of men is assailed, the gods bring upon us, incensed as they are by your wrong-doings and by your transgressions. If it were not a mark of stupidity to linger on matters which are already clear, and which require no defense, I should certainly show, by unfolding the history of past ages, that those ills which you speak of were not unknown, were not sudden in their visitation; and that the plagues did not burst upon us, and the affairs of men begin to be attacked by a variety of dangers, from the time that our sect won the honour of this appellation. For if we are to blame, and if these plagues have been devised against our sin , whence did antiquity know these names for misfortunes? Whence did she give a designation to wars ? By what conception could she indicate pestilence and hailstorms, or how could she introduce these terms among her words, by which speech was rendered plain? For if these ills are entirely new, and if they derive their origin from recent transgressions, how could it be that the…

4. When was the human race destroyed by a flood? Was it not before us? When was the world set on fire, and reduced to coals and ashes? Was it not before us? When were the greatest cities engulphed in the billows of the sea? Was it not before us? When were wars waged with wild beasts, and battles fought with lions? was it not before us? When was ruin brought on whole communities by poisonous serpents? was it not before us? For, inasmuch as you are wont to lay to our blame the cause of frequent wars , the devastation of cities, the irruptions of the Germans and the Scythians, allow me, with your leave, to say — In your eagerness to calumniate us, you do not perceive the real nature of that which is alleged.

It is therefore right, especially in a matter on which the whole plan of life turns, that every one should place confidence in himself, and use his own judgment and individual capacity for the investigation and weighing of the truth , rather than through confidence in others to be deceived by their errors , as though he himself were without understanding. God has given wisdom to all alike, that they might be able both to investigate things which they have not heard, and to weigh things which they have heard. Nor, because they preceded us in time, did they also outstrip us in wisdom; for if this is given equally to all, we cannot be anticipated in it by those who precede us. It is incapable of diminution, as the light and brilliancy of the sun; because, as the sun is the light of the eyes, so is wisdom the light of man's heart.

Wherefore, since wisdom — that is, the inquiry after truth — is natural to all, they deprive themselves of wisdom, who without any judgment approve of the discoveries of their ancestors, and like sheep are led by others. But this escapes their notice, that the name of ancestors being introduced, they think it impossible that they themselves should have more knowledge because they are called descendants, or that the others should be unwise because they are called ancestors. What, therefore, prevents us from taking a precedent from them, that as they handed down to posterity their false inventions, so we who have discovered the truth may hand down better things to our posterity?

There remains therefore a great subject of inquiry, the discussion of which does not come from talent, but from knowledge : and this must be explained at greater length, that nothing at all may be left in doubt . For perhaps some one may have recourse to those things which are handed down by many and undoubted authorities; that those very persons , whom we have shown to be no gods, have often displayed their majesty both by prodigies, and dreams, and auguries, and oracles.

And, indeed, many wonderful things may be enumerated, and especially this, that Accius Navius, a consummate augur, when he was warning Tarquinius Priscus to undertake the commencement of nothing new without the previous sanction of auguries, and the king, detracting from the credit due to his art, told him to consult the birds, and then to announce to him whether it was possible for that which he himself had conceived in his mind to be accomplished, and Navius affirmed that it was possible; then take this whetstone, he said, and divide it with a razor. But the other without any hesitation took and cut it. In the next place is the fact of Castor and Pollux having been seen in the Latin war at the lake of Juturna washing off the sweat of their horses, when their temple which adjoins the fountain had been open of its own accord.

I will therefore set forth the method of all these things, that difficult and obscure subjects may be more easily understood; and I will bring to light all these deceptions of the pretended deity, led by which men have departed very far from the way of truth . But I will retrace the matter far back from its source; that if any, unacquainted with the truth and ignorant , shall apply himself to the reading of this book , he may be instructed, and may understand what can in truth be the source and origin of these evils ; and having received light, may perceive his own errors and those of the whole human race .

Since God was possessed of the greatest foresight for planning, and of the greatest skill for carrying out in action, before He commenced this business of the world — inasmuch as there was in Him, and always is, the fountain of full and most complete goodness, — in order that goodness might spring as a stream from Him, and might flow forth afar, He produced a Spirit like to Himself, who might be endowed with the perfections of God the Father. But how He willed that, I will endeavour to show in the fourth book. Then He made another being, in whom the disposition of the divine origin did not remain. Therefore he was infected with his own envy as with poison, and passed from good to evil ; and at his own will, which had been given to him by God unfettered, he acquired for himself a contrary name.

From which it appears that the source of all evils is envy . For he envied his predecessor, who through his steadfastness is acceptable and dear to God the Father. This being, who from good became evil by his own act, is called by the Greeks diabolus : we call him accuser, because he reports to God the faults to which he himself entices us. God , therefore, when He began the fabric of the world, set over the whole work that first and greatest Son, and used Him at the same time as a counsellor and artificer, in planning, arranging, and accomplishing, since He is complete both in knowledge , and judgment, and power; concerning whom I now speak more sparingly, because in another place both His excellence, and His name, and His nature must be related by us.

Let no one inquire of what materials God made these works so great and wonderful: for He made all things out of nothing. Nor are the poets to be listened to, who say that in the beginning was a chaos, that is, a confusion of matter and the elements; but that God afterwards divided all that mass, and having separated each object from the confused heap, and arranged them in order, He constructed and adorned the world. Now it is easy to reply to these persons , who do not understand the power of God: for they believe that He can produce nothing, except out of materials already existing and prepared; in which error philosophers also were involved.

Therefore the Most High God , and Parent of all, when He had purposed to transfer His religion, sent from heaven a teacher of righteousness, that in Him or through Him He might give a new law to new worshippers; not as He had before done, by the instrumentality of man. Nevertheless it was His pleasure that He should be born as a man , that in all things He might be like His supreme Father. For God the Father Himself, who is the origin and source of all things, inasmuch as He is without parents , is most truly named by Trismegistus fatherless and motherless, because He was born from no one. For which reason it was befitting that the Son also should be twice born, that He also might become fatherless and motherless.

For in His first nativity, which was spiritual, He was motherless, because He was begotten by God the Father alone, without the office of a mother. But in His second, which was in the flesh, He was born of a virgin's womb without the office of a father, that, bearing a middle substance between God and man , He might be able, as it were, to take by the hand this frail and weak nature of ours, and raise it to immortality . He became both the Son of God through the Spirit , and the Son of man through the flesh — that is, both God and man . The power of God was displayed in Him, from the works which He performed; the frailty of the man, from the passion which He endured: on what account He undertook it I will mention a little later.

In the meantime, we learn from the predictions of the prophets that He was both God and man — composed of both natures. Isaiah testifies that He was God in these words: Isaiah 45:14-16 Egypt is wearied, and the merchandise of Ethiopia , and the Sabæans, men of stature, shall come over unto You, and shall be Your servants: and they shall walk behind You; in chains they shall fall down unto You, and shall make supplication unto You, Since God is in You, and there is no other God besides You. For You are God , and we knew You not, the God of Israel , the Saviour. They shall all be confounded and ashamed who oppose You, and shall fall into confusion. In like manner the prophet Jeremiah thus speaks: This is our God , and there shall none other be compared unto Him.

He has found out all the way of knowledge , and has given it unto Jacob His servant, and to Israel His beloved. Afterward He was seen upon earth, and dwelt among men . David also, in the forty-fourth Psalm: Your throne, O God , is for ever and ever; a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of Your kingdom. You have loved righteousness, and hated wickedness ; therefore God , Your God , has anointed You with the oil of gladness . By which word he also shows His name, since (as I have shown above) He was called Christ from His anointing. Then, that He was also man, Jeremiah teaches, saying: And He is a man , and who has known Him? Also Isaiah: And God shall send to them a man , who shall save them, shall save them by judging.

Having spoken of the second nativity, in which, He showed Himself in the flesh to men , let us come to those wonderful works , on account of which, though they were signs of heavenly power, the Jews esteemed Him a magician. When He first began to reach maturity He was baptized by the prophet John in the river Jordan, that He might wash away in the spiritual laver not His own sins , for it is evident that He had none, but those of the flesh, which He bare; that as He saved the Jews by undergoing circumcision , so He might save the Gentiles also by baptism — that is, by the pouring forth of the purifying dew. Then a voice from heaven was heard: You are my Son, today have I begotten You. Which voice is found to have been foretold by David. And the Spirit of God descended upon Him, formed after the appearance of a white dove.

From that time He began to perform the greatest miracles , not by magical tricks, which display nothing true and substantial, but by heavenly strength and power, which were foretold even long ago by the prophets who announced Him; which works are so many, that a single book is not sufficient to comprise them all. I will therefore enumerate them briefly and generally, without any designation of persons and places, that I may be able to come to the setting forth of His passion and cross, to which my discourse has long been hastening.

His powers were those which Apollo called wonderful: that wherever He journeyed, by a single word, and in a single moment, He healed the sick and infirm, and those afflicted with every kind of disease: so that those who were deprived of the use of all their limbs, having suddenly received power, were strengthened, and themselves carried their couches, on which they had a little time before been carried. But to the lame, and to those afflicted with some defect of the feet, He not only gave the power of walking, but also of running. Then, also, if any had their eyes blinded in the deepest darkness, He restored them to their former sight. He also loosened the tongues of the dumb, so that they discoursed and spoke eloquently. He also opened the ears of the deaf, and caused them to hear; He cleansed the polluted and the blemished.

And He performed all these things not by His hands, or the application of any remedy, but by His word and command, as also the Sibyl had foretold: Doing all things by His word, and healing every disease. Nor, indeed, is it wonderful that He did wonderful things by His word, since He Himself was the Word of God , relying upon heavenly strength and power. Nor was it enough that He gave strength to the feeble, soundness of body to the maimed, health to the sick and languishing, unless He also raised the dead, as it were unbound from sleep, and recalled them to life. And the Jews , then, when they saw these things, contended that they were done by demoniacal power, although it was contained in their secret writings that all things should thus come to pass as they did.

When, therefore, Christ fulfilled these things which God would have done, and which He foretold many ages before by His prophets , incited by these things, and ignorant of the sacred Scriptures, they conspired together to condemn their God. And though He knew that this would come to pass, and repeatedly said that He must suffer and be put to death for the salvation of many, nevertheless He withdrew Himself with His disciples , not that He might avoid that which it was necessary for Him to undergo and endure, but that He might show what ought to take place in every persecution , that no one should appear to have fallen into it through his own fault: and He announced that it would come to pass that He should be betrayed by one of them. And thus Judas, induced by a bribe , delivered up to the Jews the Son of God .

But they took and brought Him before Pontius Pilate , who at that time was administering the province of Syria as governor, and demanded that He should be crucified, though they laid nothing else to His charge except that He said that He was the Son of God , the King of the Jews ; also His own saying, Destroy this temple, which was forty-six years in building, and in three days I will raise it up again without hands, — signifying that His passion would shortly take place, and that He, having been put to death by the Jews , would rise again on the third day. For He Himself was the true temple of God . They inveighed against these expressions of His, as ill-omened and impious. And when Pilate had heard these things, and He said nothing in His own defense, he gave sentence that there appeared nothing deserving of condemnation in Him.

But those most unjust accusers, together with the people whom they had stirred up, began to cry out, and with loud voices to demand His crucifixion. Then Pontius was overpowered both by their outcries, and by the instigation of Herod the tetrarch, who feared lest he should be deposed from his sovereignty. He did not, however, himself pass sentence, but delivered Him up to the Jews , that they themselves might judge Him according to their law. Therefore they led Him away when He had been scourged with rods, and before they crucified Him they mocked Him; for they put upon Him a scarlet robe, and a crown of thorns, and saluted Him as King, and gave Him gall for food, and mingled for Him vinegar to drink.

After these things they spat upon His face, and struck Him with the palms of their hands; and when the executioners themselves contended about His garments, they cast lots among themselves for His tunic and mantle. And while all these things were doing, He uttered no voice from His mouth, as though He were dumb. Then they lifted Him up in the midst between two malefactors, who had been condemned for robbery , and fixed Him to the cross. What can I here deplore in so great a crime? Or in what words can I lament such great wickedness ? For we are not relating the crucifixion of Gavius, which Marcus Tullius followed up with all the spirit and strength of his eloquence, pouring forth as it were the fountains of all his genius, proclaiming that it was an unworthy deed that a Roman citizen should be crucified in violation of all laws .

God , therefore, the contriver and founder of all things, as we have said in the second book, before He commenced this excellent work of the world, begot a pure and incorruptible Spirit, whom He called His Son . And although He had afterwards created by Himself innumerable other beings, whom we call angels , this first-begotten, however, was the only one whom He considered worthy of being called by the divine name, as being powerful in His Father's excellence and majesty. But that there is a Son of the Most High God , who is possessed of the greatest power, is shown not only by the unanimous utterances of the prophets , but also by the declaration of Trismegistus and the predictions of the Sibyls.

Hermes, in the book which is entitled The Perfect Word , made use of these words: The Lord and Creator of all things, whom we have thought right to call God , since He made the second God visible and sensible. But I use the term sensible, not because He Himself perceives (for the question is not whether He Himself perceives), but because He leads to perception and to intelligence. Since, therefore, He made Him first, and alone, and one only, He appeared to Him beautiful, and most full of all good things; and He hallowed Him, and altogether loved Him as His own Son.

The Erythræan Sibyl, in the beginning of her poem, which she commenced with the Supreme God , proclaims the Son of God as the leader and commander of all, in these verses:— The nourisher and creator of all things, who placed the sweet breath in all, and made God the leader of all. And again, at the end of the same poem:— But whom God gave for faithful men to honour . And another Sibyl enjoins that He ought to be known :— Know Him as your God , who is the Son of God . Assuredly He is the very Son of God , who by that most wise King Solomon, full of divine inspiration, spoke these things which we have added: , God founded me in the beginning of His ways, in His work before the ages.

He set me up in the beginning, before He made the earth, and before He established the depths, before the fountains of waters came forth: the Lord begot me before all the hills; He made the regions, and the uninhabitable boundaries under the heaven. When He prepared the heaven, I was by Him: and when He separated His own seat, when He made the strong clouds above the winds, and when He strengthened the mountains, and placed them under heaven; when He laid the strong foundations of the earth, I was with Him arranging all things. I was He in whom He delighted: I was daily delighted, when He rejoiced, the world being completed.

The desire of inventing, therefore, and craftiness were absent from these men, since they were unskilful. Or what unlearned man could invent things adapted to one another, and coherent, when the most learned of the philosophers , Plato and Aristotle, and Epicurus and Zeno, themselves spoke things at variance with one another, and contrary? For this is the nature of falsehoods, that they cannot be coherent. But their teaching, because it is true , everywhere agrees, and is altogether consistent with itself; and on this account it effects persuasion, because it is based on a consistent plan.

They did not therefore devise that religion for the sake of gain and advantage, inasmuch as both by their precepts and in reality they followed that course of life which is without pleasures, and despised all things which are reckoned among good things, and since they not only endured death for their faith , but also both knew and foretold that they were about to die, and afterwards that all who followed their system would suffer cruel and impious things. But he affirmed that Christ Himself was put to flight by the Jews , and having collected a band of nine hundred men, committed robberies. Who would venture to oppose so great an authority? We must certainly believe this, for perchance some Apollo announced it to him in his slumbers.

So many robbers have at all times perished, and do perish daily, and you yourself have certainly condemned many: which of them after his crucifixion was called, I will not say a God , but a man? But you perchance believed it from the circumstance of your having consecrated the homicide Mars as a god, though you would not have done this if the Areopagites had crucified him. The same man, when he endeavoured to overthrow his wonderful deeds , and did not however deny them, wished to show that Apollonius performed equal or even greater deeds . It is strange that he omitted to mention Apuleius, of whom many and wonderful things are accustomed to be related. Why therefore, O senseless one, does no one worship Apollonius in the place of God?

Unless by chance you alone do so, who are worthy forsooth of that god, with whom the true God will punish you everlastingly. If Christ is a magician because He performed wonderful deeds , it is plain that Apollonius, who, according to your description, when Domitian wished to punish him, suddenly disappeared on his trial, was more skilful than He who was both arrested and crucified. But perhaps he wished from this very thing to prove the arrogance of Christ , in that He made Himself God , that the other may appear to have been more modest, who, though he performed greater actions, as this one thinks, nevertheless did not claim that for himself. I omit at present to compare the works themselves, because in the second and preceding book I have spoken respecting the fraud and tricks of the magic art.

But let us leave the testimony of prophets , lest a proof derived from those who are universally disbelieved should appear insufficient. Let us come to authors, and for the demonstration of the truth let us cite as witnesses those very persons whom they are accustomed to make use of against us — I mean poets and philosophers . From these we cannot fail in proving the unity of God ; not that they had ascertained the truth , but that the force of the truth itself is so great, that no one can be so blind as not to see the divine brightness presenting itself to his eyes. The poets, therefore, however much they adorned the gods in their poems, and amplified their exploits with the highest praises, yet very frequently confess that all things are held together and governed by one spirit or mind.

Orpheus, who is the most ancient of the poets, and coeval with the gods themselves — since it is reported that he sailed among the Argonauts together with the sons of Tyndarus and Hercules, — speaks of the true and great God as the first-born , because nothing was produced before Him, but all things sprung from Him. He also calls Him Phanes because when as yet there was nothing He first appeared and came forth from the infinite . And since he was unable to conceive in his mind the origin and nature of this Being, he said that He was born from the boundless air: The first-born , Phaethon, son of the extended air; for he had nothing more to say.

He affirms that this Being is the Parent of all the gods, on whose account He framed the heaven, and provided for His children that they might have a habitation and place of abode in common: He built for immortals an imperishable home. Thus, under the guidance of nature and reason, he understood that there was a power of surpassing greatness which framed heaven and earth. For he could not say that Jupiter was the author of all things, since he was born from Saturn; nor could he say that Saturn himself was their author, since it was reported that he was produced from the heaven; but he did not venture to set up the heaven as the primeval god, because he saw that it was an element of the universe , and must itself have had an author. This consideration led him to that first-born god, to whom he assigns and gives the first place.

Homer was able to give us no information relating to the truth , for he wrote of human rather than divine things. Hesiod was able, for he comprised in the work of one book the generation of the gods; but yet he gave us no information, for he took his commencement not from God the Creator, but from chaos, which is a confused mass of rude and unarranged matter; whereas he ought first to have explained from what source, at what time, and in what manner, chaos itself had begun to exist or to have consistency. Without doubt , as all things were placed in order, arranged, and made by some artificer, so matter itself must of necessity have been formed by some being. Who, then, made it except God , to whose power all things are subject? But he shrinks from admitting this, while he dreads the unknown truth .

Now let us pass to divine testimonies; but I will previously bring forward one which resembles a divine testimony, both on account of its very great antiquity, and because he whom I shall name was taken from men and placed among the gods. According to Cicero, Caius Cotta the pontiff, while disputing against the Stoics concerning superstitions , and the variety of opinions which prevail respecting the gods, in order that he might, after the custom of the Academics, make everything uncertain, says that there were five Mercuries; and having enumerated four in order, says that the fifth was he by whom Argus was slain, and that on this account he fled into Egypt , and gave laws and letters to the Egyptians . The Egyptians call him Thoth; and from him the first month of their year, that is, September, received its name among them. He also built a town, which is even now called in Greek Hermopolis (the town of Mercury), and the inhabitants of Phenæ honour him with religious worship. And although he was a man , yet he was of great antiquity, and most fully imbued with every kind of learning, so that the knowledge of many subjects and arts acquired for him the name of Trismegistus. He wrote books, and those in great numbers, relating to the knowledge of divine things, in which be asserts the majesty of the supreme and only God , and makes mention of Him by the same names which we use — God and Father. And that no one might inquire His name, he said that He was without name, and that…

1. One God , who is alone, most mighty, uncreated. This is the only supreme God , who made the heaven, and decked it with lights.

2. But there is one only God of pre-eminent power, who made the heaven, and sun, and stars, and moon, and fruitful earth, and waves of the water of the sea. And since He alone is the framer of the universe , and the artificer of all things of which it consists or which are contained in it, it testifies that He alone ought to be worshipped: —

3. Worship Him who is alone the ruler of the world, who alone was and is from age to age. Also another Sibyl, whoever she is, when she said that she conveyed the voice of God to men , thus spoke:—

It is contained in the mysteries of the sacred writings, that a prince of the Hebrews, compelled by want of grain, passed into Egypt with all his family and relatives . And when his posterity, remaining long in Egypt , had increased into a great nation, and were oppressed by the heavy and intolerable yoke of slavery, God smote Egypt with an incurable stroke, and freed His people, leading them through the midst of the sea, when, the waves being cut asunder and parted on either side, the people went over on dry ground. And the king of the Egyptians endeavouring to follow them as they fled, the sea returning to its place, he was cut off, with all his people.

And this deed so illustrious and so wonderful, although for the present it displayed to men the power of God , was also a foreshadowing and figure of a greater deed, which the same God was about to perform at the last consummation of the times, for He will free His people from the oppressive bondage of the world. But since at that time the people of God were one, and in one nation only, Egypt only was smitten. But now, because the people of God are collected out of all languages, and dwell among all nations, and are oppressed by those bearing rule over them, it must come to pass that all nations, that is, the whole world, be beaten with heavenly stripes, that the righteous people, who are worshippers of God , may be set free.

And as then signs were given by which the coming destruction was shown to the Egyptians , so at the last time wonderful prodigies will take place throughout all the elements of the world, by which the impending destruction may be understood by all nations. Therefore, as the end of this world approaches, the condition of human affairs must undergo a change, and through the prevalence of wickedness become worse; so that now these times of ours, in which iniquity and impiety have increased even to the highest degree, may be judged happy and almost golden in comparison of that incurable evil .

For righteousness will so decrease, and impiety, avarice , desire, and lust will so greatly increase, that if there shall then happen to be any good men, they will be a prey to the wicked , and will be harassed on all sides by the unrighteous; while the wicked alone will be in opulence, but the good will be afflicted in all calumnies and in want. All justice will be confounded, and the laws will be destroyed. No one will then have anything except that which has been gained or defended by the hand: boldness and violence will possess all things. There will be no faith among men , nor peace, nor kindness, nor shame, nor truth ; and thus also there will be neither security, nor government, nor any rest from evils .