Octavius

For on account of business and of visiting me, he had hastened to Rome, leaving behind his home, his wife, his children, and, what is most lovable in children, their years still innocent, and still attempting half-formed words, their speech made sweeter by the very stumbling of their faltering tongue. At his arrival I cannot express in words with how great and how impatient a joy I exulted, since the unexpected presence of a most dear friend greatly increased my gladness. Therefore, after one day and another, when the frequent use of constant companionship had already satisfied the eagerness of longing, and what we had not known of each other during our mutual absence we had learned by mutual report; it pleased us to make for Ostia, a most pleasant city, because for my body a gentle and suitable treatment of sea-bathing was at hand for drying up the humors. Moreover, the vacation for the vintage had relaxed judicial business. For at that season, after the summer's heat, autumn was directing itself toward a temperate state.

And so, when at dawn we were making our way to the sea, walking along the shore, so that the breeze, breathing gently, might refresh our limbs, and so that the sand, yielding with exquisite pleasure beneath our soft tread, might give way; Caecilius, having noticed a statue of Serapis, as the superstitious common people are wont to do, brought his hand to his mouth and pressed a kiss with his lips.

Then Octavius said: It is not the part of a good man, brother Marcus, to leave a man who clings to your side at home and abroad so abandoned in this blindness of common ignorance, that on so bright a day you allow him to stumble against stones, carved indeed, and anointed, and crowned; when you know that no less reproach from this error redounds upon you than upon himself. When with this speech of his we had traversed the middle stretch of the city, we were now holding the open shore. There the gentle wave, spreading over the outermost sands as if to smooth them for a promenade, stretched out: and, as the sea is always restless even when the winds have subsided, though it did not come forth to land in white and foaming waves, yet it came in rippling and swelling ones.

There we were exceedingly delighted in wandering, as we dipped our feet at the very edge of the water, which in turn now played against our feet as it came in, now, ebbing back and drawing our footprints into itself, reabsorbed them. Gradually and quietly advancing, we traced the curve of the gently bending shore, beguiling the journey with conversation. These conversations were Octavius's, discoursing about navigation, a narrative. But when we had consumed a sufficiently good stretch of walking together with talk, we retraced the same path, turning our steps back. And when we came to the place where small boats, drawn up on shore, rested raised from the ground's filth on props placed beneath them; we see boys eagerly competing to play at throwing potsherds into the sea.

This is the game: to pick from the shore a smooth potsherd, worn smooth by the tossing of the waves; to grasp that potsherd flat and level between the fingers, and to spin it out as low and close as possible over the waves, so that the missile might either skim the back of the sea and swim along, gliding with gentle impetus; or might skip over the tops of the waves and dart up, emerging, as it is lifted by repeated leaping. That boy counted himself the winner whose potsherd both ran farther and leaped more frequently.

Therefore, while we were all taken with the pleasure of this spectacle, Caecilius paid no attention, nor laughed at the contest; but silent, anxious, withdrawn, his countenance confessed some unspoken distress. To whom I said: What is this? Why do I not recognize, Caecilius, that liveliness of yours? And I miss that cheerfulness of your eyes even in serious matters? Then he said: For some time now the speech of our Octavius has been sharply stinging and gnawing at me, in which, having turned against you, he rebuked you for negligence, so as to charge me more gravely, though indirectly, with ignorance. Therefore I will go further: I have a matter to settle with Octavius wholly and entirely.

If it please you that I, as a man of his own school, dispute with him, he will soon enough understand that it is easier to dispute among companions than to engage in the manner of the wise; but for now let us sit down on those rocks cast out there as a protection for the baths and running out into the deep, so that we may both rest from our walk and dispute more attentively. And at his word we sat down so that I, in the middle of the three, was sheltered on either side; nor was this out of deference, or rank, or honor, since friendship always either receives equals or makes them, but so that, as arbiter and nearest to each, I might lend my ears and, placed between them, separate the two disputants. Then Caecilius began thus:

Although for you, brother Marcus, concerning whom we chiefly inquire, there may be no ambiguity, inasmuch as having carefully lived in both ways of life, you have rejected the one and approved the other; yet at present your mind must be so disposed that you hold the balance of a most impartial judge, and do not lean inclined to one side, lest the judgment appear to have been born not so much from our disputations as brought forth from your own feelings. Accordingly, if you sit with me as though some newcomer and as though ignorant of either side, there is no difficulty in making plain that all things in human affairs are doubtful, uncertain, in suspense, and that all things are more probable than true. The more remarkable it is that some, out of weariness of investigating truth to its depths, rashly yield to any opinion whatsoever, rather than persevere in searching with persistent diligence.

Therefore all should be indignant, all should feel grief, that certain persons dare—and these raw in learning, profane in letters, without experience even of the meaner arts—to pronounce a definite judgment concerning the sum and majesty of things, about which philosophy itself, through all ages, with very many schools, deliberates even to this day. And not without reason: since human mediocrity falls so far short of divine investigation, that neither those things which are suspended and raised above us in the sky, nor those which are deep and submerged beneath the earth, are either given to us to know, or permitted to search out, or right to violate: and we may justly seem sufficiently blessed and sufficiently wise if, according to that ancient oracle of the Sage, we know ourselves more intimately.

But insofar as, indulging in mad and foolish labor, we wander beyond the bounds of our lowliness, and, cast down upon the earth, we transcend with bold desire the very heaven and the very stars, let us at least not entangle this error in vain and fearful opinions. Let there be at the beginning seeds of all things, condensed by nature coming together into itself: what god is the author here? Let the members of the whole world have coalesced, been arranged, been formed by chance collisions; what god is the artificer? Though fire may have kindled the stars, and though heaven may have been suspended by its own matter; though the earth may have been founded by weight, and though the sea may have flowed in from liquid; whence comes this religion, whence this dread, what is this superstition?

Man, and every animal that is born, is breathed into and nourished, as a voluntary concretion of elements, into which in turn man and every animal is divided, dissolved, dispersed; so all things flow back to their source and revolve back into themselves, with no artificer, no judge, no author. Thus, from seeds of fire gathered together, suns always shine, one after another; thus, from vapors exhaled from the earth, mists always rise: when these are condensed and compressed, clouds rise higher; when these same fall, rains flow, winds blow, hail crashes; or when storm-clouds collide, thunders bellow, lightnings flash, thunderbolts dart forth. Thus they fall everywhere, they strike mountains, they run into trees: they touch sacred and profane places without distinction; they strike guilty men, and often the devout as well. Why should I speak of storms, various and uncertain?

By which, with no order or examination, the force of all things is tossed about; in shipwrecks, the fates of good and bad are mingled, their deserts confused; in conflagrations, the destruction of the innocent and the guilty falls together; and when a tract of sky is infected with pestilential plague, all perish without distinction; and when men rage in the fury of war, the better rather fall. Even in peace, wickedness is not only made equal to better men, but is even cultivated: so that in most cases you know not whether their detestable depravity or their enviable felicity is more to be wondered at. But if the world were governed by divine Providence and by the authority of some deity, Phalaris and Dionysius would never have deserved a kingdom, nor Rutilius and Camillus exile, nor Socrates poison.

Behold the fruit-bearing orchards, behold the harvest already white, already the drunken vintage is ruined by rain, beaten down by hail: so either the truth is hidden and suppressed from us as uncertain, or, what is more to be believed, fortune, freed from laws, holds sway through varied and slippery chances.

Since therefore fortune is either certain, or nature is uncertain, how much more venerable and better is it, as a guardian of truth, to receive the discipline of our ancestors, to observe the religions handed down, to fear the gods with whom you were imbued from your parents rather than to know them more intimately, to worship them; and not to pass judgment on the divine powers, but to believe those who came before, who, in that still rude age, at the very birth of the world, deserved to have the gods either favorable or as kings! Hence throughout all empires, provinces, and towns, we see that individual peoples have their own rites of sacred observances, and worship their local gods, as the Eleusinians worship Ceres, the Phrygians the Mother, the Epidaurians Aesculapius, the Chaldeans Belus, the Syrians Astarte, the Taurians Diana, the Gauls Mercury, the Romans all of these.

Thus their power and authority has occupied the circuit of the whole world: thus they have extended their empire beyond the paths of the sun and the very limits of Ocean, while they practice in arms a religious valor, while they fortify their city with the observances of sacred rites, with chaste virgins, with many honors and titles of priests; while, besieged and captured within the very Capitol, they worship gods whom another would already have scorned in their anger; and through the ranks of the Gauls, marveling at the audacity of their superstition, they advance unarmed with weapons, but armed with the observance of religion; while, taken captive, within the walls of the enemy with victory still raging, they venerate the conquered divine powers; while from all sides they seek foreign gods and make them their own; while they build altars, while even to unknown divine powers and to the shades. Thus, while they take up the sacred rites of all nations, they have also deserved kingdoms.

Hence there has remained a continuous tenor of veneration, which is not broken by long age but increased: for antiquity has been accustomed to attribute to ceremonies and shrines as much sanctity as it has added of antiquity.

Yet not rashly (for I will venture for the moment to concede this myself, and thus to err more acceptably) did our ancestors devote their efforts to observing auguries, consulting entrails, establishing sacred rites, and dedicating shrines. Examine the record in books: you will find that they instituted the rites of all religions, either that divine indulgence might be repaid, or that impending wrath might be averted, or that wrath already swelling and raging might be appeased.

Witness the Idaean mother, who by her arrival both proved the chastity of a matron and freed the city from the fear of an enemy: witness the statues of the equestrian brothers consecrated at the lake, as they had appeared, who with panting, foaming, and steaming horses announced on the very day they had won it the victory over Perseus: witness the offense of Jupiter at the games, the repetition of them on account of a common man's dream: and the vow of the Decurions stands as a fulfilled witness: witness also Curtius, who by the weight or the honor of his horse filled up the gaping chasm of a deep abyss. More frequently even than we wished, the contempt of auspices has attested the presence of the gods. Thus Allia became an ill-omened name; thus the affair of Claudius and Junius was not a battle against the Carthaginians but a fatal shipwreck.

And, that the Trasimene lake might be greater and discolored with Roman blood, Flaminius scorned the auguries: and, that we might demand back our standards from the Parthians, Crassus both deserved and mocked the curses of the Dirae. I pass over ancient things, which are many, and concerning the birthdays of the gods, their gifts and favors; I disregard the songs of the poets; I also skip over the fates foretold by oracles, lest antiquity seem to you too full of fable. Turn your attention to the temples and shrines of the gods by which the Roman state is both protected and armed: they are more august by reason of the divine powers dwelling and residing within them than they are enriched by the splendor of their adornment and by gifts.

From thence indeed, filled and mingled with God, seers pluck foreknowledge of the future, give warning against dangers, healing for diseases, hope to the afflicted, aid to the wretched, comfort in calamities, relief in toils: even in sleep we see, hear, and recognize the gods, whom impiously by day we deny, refuse to acknowledge, and forswear.

And so, since among all peoples the firm consensus concerning the immortal gods remains, however uncertain its basis or origin may be, I cannot endure anyone swelling with such audacity and with some irreligious pretense of wisdom as to strive to dissolve or undermine this religion so ancient, so useful, so wholesome.

Let him be Theodorus of Cyrene, or, who came before him, Diagoras of Melos, to whom antiquity attached the surname Atheos, both of whom, by asserting that there are no gods, utterly destroyed all the fear by which humanity is governed and all reverence: yet never in this school of impiety will they prevail under the name and authority of a pretended philosophy, since the Athenians expelled from their borders Protagoras of Abdera, a man who discussed divinity with more discretion than profanity, and burned his writings in public assembly; is it not to be lamented that men (for you will bear with me as I give freer rein to the impulse of the cause I have undertaken)—men, I say, of a ruined, illicit, and desperate faction—should make inroads against those?

They gather the most ignorant from the lowest dregs, and credulous women, who yield readily because of the weakness of their sex, and form a mob of a profane conspiracy: who are bound together at nightly gatherings, and by solemn fasts and inhuman foods, not by any sacred rite but by a crime. A skulking and light-shunning nation, silent in public, chattering in corners: they despise temples as if they were tombs; they spit upon the gods, they mock at sacred rites, the wretched themselves—if it be lawful to say so—pity the priests; they despise honors and purple robes, being themselves half-naked. O what wondrous folly and incredible audacity! They despise present torments, while they fear uncertain and future ones; and while they fear to die after death, in the meantime they do not fear to die. Thus a deceitful hope flatters their terror with a reviving consolation.

And now, as the more wicked things spring up more abundantly, with depraved morals spreading day by day, those most abominable shrines of an impious gathering are growing throughout the whole world. This conspiracy, utterly detestable and execrable, must be rooted out. They recognize one another by secret marks and tokens, and love one another almost before they know one another: among them a certain religion of lust is also promiscuously mingled; and they indiscriminately call one another brother and sister, so that even ordinary fornication, through the intervention of a sacred name, becomes incest: and thus their vain and mad superstition glories in crimes. Nor would shrewd rumor speak of them in terms that, unless the greatest and most varied truth were behind it, would be most abominable and would need to be prefaced with an apology. I hear that they venerate the head of an ass, that most base of animals, consecrated among them by some foolish persuasion—a religion worthy of and born from such morals.

Others say that they worship the genitals of their very president and priest, and adore, as it were, the nature of their father. I know not whether these things be false; certainly the suspicion is well suited to their secret and nocturnal rites: and those who tell the tale that a man punished with the supreme penalty for his crime, and the deadly wood of the cross, are the objects of their ceremonies, assign altars fitting for the depraved and criminal, so that they worship what they deserve. Now concerning the initiation of novices, the story is as detestable as it is well known: an infant, covered over with meal, is set before him who is to be initiated into the rites, to deceive the unwary.

This infant is slain by the novice, who is induced by the surface of the meal to strike what seem to be harmless blows, with hidden and unseen wounds: and then—O the horror!—they thirstily lick up its blood, and eagerly divide its limbs among themselves: by this victim they are bound in fellowship; by this shared knowledge of crime they pledge one another to mutual silence: such rites are more foul than all sacrileges.

And concerning the banquet, it is well known, everyone speaks of it everywhere, and the speech of our fellow-citizen of Cirta also bears witness to it: on an appointed day they gather for a feast, with all their children, sisters, mothers, persons of every sex and every age: there, after many courses, when the feast has grown warm and the heat of drunken incestuous lust has blazed up, a dog which is tied to the lampstand is provoked to leap and spring by a toss of a morsel beyond the length of the cord by which it is bound: thus, with the witnessing light overturned and extinguished, in the shameless darkness they entangle themselves in the bonds of unspeakable lust as chance determines; and, if not all in act, yet all alike in conscience are guilty of incest, since whatever can happen in the act of individuals is sought by the desire of all.

I deliberately pass over many things; for even these are far too many, all or most of which the very obscurity of their depraved religion declares to be true. For why do they so earnestly strive to conceal and hide whatever it is they worship, since honorable things always rejoice in publicity, while crimes are secret? Why have they no altars, no temples, no known images?

Why do they never speak openly, never assemble freely, unless that which they worship and interpret is either to be punished or to be ashamed of? And moreover, whence, or who, or where is that one God, solitary, desolate; whom no free people, no kingdoms, not even Roman superstition has known? The Jews alone and in their wretchedness, a single nation, worshipped one God—and they too openly, with temples, altars, victims, and ceremonies—whose power and might is so utterly nothing that he is a captive to the Roman divine powers along with his own nation. But then what monstrous things, what portents, do the Christians fabricate!

That God of theirs, whom they can neither show nor see, they would have diligently inquiring into the morals of all men, the acts of all, the words of all, and finally their secret thoughts—ranging about, forsooth, and present everywhere—a troublesome, restless, shamelessly prying being, if indeed he is present at all deeds and wanders into all places: since he can neither attend to individuals, being occupied throughout the universe, nor suffice for the universe, being occupied with individuals. What of this?—that they threaten the whole world, and the very universe with its stars, with conflagration, and are contriving its ruin: as if either the eternal order established by divine laws in nature could be disturbed, or the bond of all the elements broken and the fabric of heaven divided, that mass by which all things are contained and encompassed could be overthrown.

Not content with this frenzied opinion, they pile on and attach old wives' tales; they claim that they will be reborn after death from ashes and cinders: and with some confidence they mutually believe one another's lies; you would think they had already come back to life. A twofold evil and a double madness! To announce destruction to the heavens and the stars, which we leave as we find them: and to promise eternity to themselves when dead and extinct, who are born and die as we are. Hence, of course, they also execrate funeral pyres and condemn burial by fire; as if every body, even if withdrawn from the flames, were not nonetheless dissolved into earth over years and ages: and as if it made any difference whether wild beasts tear it apart, or the seas consume it, or the earth covers it, or the flames carry it off, since for corpses every form of burial, if they feel, is a punishment; if they do not feel, it is in its very swiftness of dissolution a remedy.

Deceived by this error, they promise themselves a blessed and everlasting life after death, as for the good: and for others, as unjust, eternal punishment. Much could be added to this, did my discourse not press on; that they themselves are unjust, I have already shown, and I do not labor the point further: although even if I were to grant them to be just, yet the opinion of the majority holds that guilt or innocence is to be attributed to fate, and this is your consensus as well. For whatever we do, as others attribute it to fate, so you attribute it to God: thus in your sect it is not a matter of willing freely, but of being chosen. You therefore fashion an unjust judge, who punishes the lot of men, not their will. Yet I would wish to inquire whether the resurrection is with bodies and with which bodies—with the same ones or with renewed ones—or without a body. Without a body. That, as far as I know, is neither mind, nor soul, nor life.

With the very body itself? But that has already crumbled away long before. With another body? Then a new man is born, not the former one restored. And yet so great an age has passed, countless centuries have flowed by: who, even one, has returned from the underworld, even with the lot of Protesilaus, granted a leave of even a few hours, if only that we might believe by his example? All these things are fictions of a diseased imagination, and empty consolations, played with by deceitful poets in the sweetness of their verse, and by you, credulous as you are, shamefully refashioned in application to your God.

Nor do you at least take from present experience the proof of how empty vows of an unfulfilled promise deceive you; consider, wretched ones, while you still live, what awaits after death. Behold, a part of you—and the greater and better part, as you say—are in want, are cold, toil in labor and hunger: and God suffers it, looks the other way; he either will not or cannot help his own. Thus he is either powerless or unjust. You who dream of immortality after death—when you are shaken by danger, when you burn with fevers, when you are torn by pain, do you not then feel your condition? Do you not then recognize your frailty? Unwillingly, wretch, you are convicted of weakness, and will not confess it?

But I leave aside what is common to all: behold, for you there are threats, punishments, torments, and crosses now not merely to be worshipped but to be endured: and fires too, which you both foretell and fear: where is that God of yours, who can help those who come back to life, but cannot help those who are alive? Do not the Romans reign, rule, and enjoy the whole world without your God, and lord it over you?

But you meanwhile, in suspense and anxiety, abstain from honorable pleasures. You do not attend spectacles, you take no part in processions: public banquets are without you; sacred contests, choice foods, and drinks poured in libation at altars you abhor. So greatly do you dread the gods whom you deny. You do not wreathe your head with flowers: you do not honor your body with perfumes: you reserve ointments for funerals: you deny garlands even to tombs; pale, trembling, worthy of pity—but of pity from our gods. Thus you neither rise again, wretched ones, nor do you live in the meantime. Therefore, if you have any wisdom or modesty, cease to pry into the regions of heaven and the fates and secrets of the world: it is enough to look at what lies at your feet, especially for the unlearned, unpolished, rude, and rustic, to whom it has not been given to understand civic affairs, and much less is it granted to discourse of divine things.

And yet, if there is a desire for philosophizing, let each of you, however great he may be, imitate, if he can, Socrates, the prince of wisdom; that man's well-known reply, whenever he was asked about heavenly matters, is: What is above us is nothing to us. Rightly, therefore, did he earn from the oracle the testimony of singular prudence—that same oracle which he himself foresaw was set above all others, not because he had discovered everything, but because he had learned that he knew nothing—so that the highest prudence consists in confessed ignorance. From this source flowed the safe doubt of Arcesilas, and much later of Carneades, and of very many Academics on the highest questions; by which manner of philosophizing both the cautiously unlearned can proceed, and the learned can do so gloriously. What of the admirable and universally to-be-followed hesitation of Simonides of Miletus?

That Simonides, when he was asked by the tyrant Hiero what he thought the gods were and of what nature, first requested a day for deliberation, on the next day extended it by two days, and soon added as much again when reminded; finally, when the tyrant inquired the reasons for so great a delay, he replied that the further his inquiry proceeded, the more obscure the truth became to him. In my opinion also, things that are doubtful are to be left as they are; nor, when so many and such great men are deliberating, is a judgment to be rashly and boldly cast to one side, lest either an old woman's superstition be introduced, or all religion be destroyed.

Thus spoke Caecilius, smiling (for the rush of his poured-forth speech had relieved the swelling of his indignation): Does Octavius dare to answer this, he said—a man of Plautine stock, as foremost among bakers, so last among philosophers? Spare your applause for him, I said; for it is not fitting that you exult over the elegance of your speech before both sides have spoken more fully; especially since your debate rests not on praise but on truth. And although your speech has delighted me greatly with its subtle variety, yet I am moved more deeply, not concerning the present proceeding, but concerning the whole manner of disputation: because very often, according to the strength of the disputants and the power of their eloquence, even the condition of manifest truth is altered.

It is well known that this comes about through the easiness of hearers, who, while they are drawn away from attention to the matter by the allurement of words, assent without discrimination to everything that is said; and do not distinguish false things from true, not knowing that even in what seems incredible there is truth, and in what seems probable there is falsehood. And so the more often they trust in assertions, the more frequently they are refuted by those more skilled: thus they are continually deceived by rashness. They transfer the fault of the judge to a complaint of uncertainty, so that, condemning everything, they prefer to suspend judgment on all things rather than to judge among deceptions. Therefore we must take care lest we suffer from a weariness of all discourse alike, so that many simpler souls are carried away into execration and hatred of men.

For the incautiously credulous are deceived by those whom they had thought good; and soon, with a like error, now suspicious of all, they fear even those whom they could have known to be the best, as if they were wicked. We therefore, being anxious that on both sides in every matter there is argument, and that on one side truth is often obscure, and on the other side there is a wonderful subtlety which sometimes, by the abundance of its speaking, imitates the credibility of acknowledged proof—let us weigh each point as carefully as possible, so that we may be able to praise the clever arguments, but to choose, approve, and embrace those things which are right.

You are departing, said Caecilius, from the duty of a conscientious judge: for it is a great injustice that you should weaken the force of my case at the outset of a most weighty dispute, while Octavius has each of his points intact and untouched. Let him reflect upon it, if he can. What you charge against me, I said, I have set forth, unless I am mistaken, for the common benefit, so that by careful scrutiny we may free our judgment not by the swelling of eloquence but by the solid weight of the matters themselves; nor is attention to be diverted any longer, as you complain, since with complete silence we may hear the response of our Januarius, who is already eager.

And Octavius said: I will speak indeed, as best I can, according to my strength; and you must strive together with me to wash away the most bitter stain of insults in the stream of truthful words. Nor will I conceal that at the outset the opinion of my Natalis wavered, wandered, and slipped in such a way that we must be uncertain whether your learning was thrown into confusion, or whether it faltered through error. For at one moment he varied between believing in gods, at another deliberating, so that, with the proposition uncertain, the intention of our response might be founded on a more certain basis. But in my Natalis I do not wish, nor do I believe there to be, cunning: subtle cleverness is far from his simplicity. What then?

As one who does not know the right road, when, as happens, it branches into several from one, because he does not know the way, stands anxious and hesitating, and dares neither to choose any one of them nor to approve all of them; so he to whom there is no stable judgment of truth, as untrustworthy suspicion spreads, so his opinion in its doubt is scattered. It is therefore no wonder if Caecilius is tossed and fluctuates continually in contradictions and inconsistencies: that this may happen no further, I will refute and disprove, however diverse the things that have been said; once one truth has been confirmed and proved, he need neither doubt nor wander any more.

And since my brother has burst out saying that he bears it ill, is vexed, indignant, and grieved that the unlettered, the poor, the unskilled should dispute about heavenly matters; let him know that all men, without distinction of age, sex, or rank, are born capable and fitted for reason and understanding; and that wisdom is not acquired by fortune but implanted by nature: nay, that even the philosophers themselves, or any others who have gone down to memory as discoverers of the arts, before they brought forth by the skill of their minds the glory of their name, were held to be common, unlearned, half-naked: so much so that the rich, bound by their own wealth, were more accustomed to look up to gold than to heaven: while our poor men both devised wisdom and handed down learning to others. Hence it appears that genius is not given by wealth, nor acquired by study, but is generated together with the very formation of the mind.

There is therefore nothing to be indignant or grieved at if anyone inquires, thinks, and speaks about divine things; since what is sought is not the authority of the disputant but the truth of the disputation itself: and indeed the more unskilled the speech, the more evident the reasoning is; because it is not colored by the pomp of eloquence and charm, but, as it is, the rule of right is upheld.

Nor do I refuse what Caecilius strove to assert among his chief points: that a man ought to know and consider what he is, whence he is, why he is; whether he is formed of elements, or composed of atoms, or rather made, shaped, and animated by God.

This very thing we cannot explore and bring to light without inquiry into the universe, since all things are so coherent, connected, and linked together that unless you have carefully examined the principle of divinity you cannot know humanity; nor can you rightly conduct civil affairs unless you have come to know this common city of the whole world shared by all; especially since we differ from wild beasts in this, that they, prone and bending toward the earth, are born to look for nothing but fodder, while we, whose face is erect, whose gaze is given upward to heaven, have speech and reason, through which we know, perceive, and imitate God—and it is neither right nor lawful for us to be ignorant of the heavenly brightness that presses itself upon our eyes and senses. For it is the likeness of the greatest sacrilege to seek on the ground what you ought to find on high.

All the more do those seem to me to lack mind, sense, and even their very eyes, who hold that this whole adornment of the world was not perfected by divine reason but was massed together from certain fragments clinging together by chance. For what can be so open, so manifest, and so evident, when you lift your eyes to heaven and survey what is below and around, as that there is some divine power of surpassing mind, by which all nature is inspired, moved, nourished, and governed? Look at the sky itself. How widely it stretches! How swiftly it revolves! Whether it is distinguished in the night by stars, or surveyed in the day by the sun: you will then know how wonderful and divine is the balance of the supreme ruler within it. See also how the sun's circuit makes the year; and see how the moon drives its monthly course through waxing, waning, and toil.

What shall I say of the recurring alternations of darkness and light, so that we may have an alternating renewal of work and rest? The more extended discourse about the stars is to be left to the astrologers—whether they govern the course of navigation, or whether they bring in the season for plowing and reaping—all of which things, not only in order to be created, come into being, and be arranged, required the highest craftsman and perfect reason, but also cannot be perceived, observed, and understood without the highest skill and reason. What of the fact that the order of seasons and harvests is distinguished by a stable variety—does it not bear witness to its author and parent? Spring with its flowers, and summer with its harvests, and the welcome ripeness of autumn, and the necessary olive-bearing of winter? This order would easily be thrown into confusion unless it rested on the greatest reason.

Consider also how great is the providence that winter alone should not burn with ice, nor summer alone scorch with heat, but that the middle tempering of autumn and spring should be inserted, so that through their own gradations the hidden and harmless passage of the returning year might glide along. Look at the sea: it is confined by the boundary of the shore. See all the trees: how they are animated from the bowels of the earth. Behold the Ocean: it flows back with reciprocal tides. See the springs: they flow with perennial veins; look at the rivers: they go always with their busy currents. What shall I say of the aptly disposed straight lines of mountains, the curves of hills, the spread of plains? Or what shall I say of the manifold mutual protection of living creatures? Some armed with horns, others fenced with teeth, and grounded on hooves, and bristling with spines; or free by the swiftness of their feet, or by the lifting of wings?

Above all, the very beauty of our own form confesses God as its maker: our upright posture, our erect face, our eyes set on high as if in a watchtower, and all the other senses arranged as if in a citadel.

It would be tedious to go through each detail: there is no member in the human body that does not serve both a purpose of necessity and of beauty; and what is more wonderful, the same form belongs to all, yet certain features are bent differently in each individual. Thus we all appear alike in general, and yet each is found unlike the others. What of the manner of birth? What of the desire to beget? Was it not given by God? And that the breasts fill with milk as birth ripens, and that the tender infant grows by the abundance of the milky dew? Nor does God care for the universe alone, but also for its parts. Britain is deprived of sun, but is refreshed by the warmth of the surrounding sea: the river Nile tempers the dryness of Egypt: the Euphrates cultivates Mesopotamia: the Indus compensates for rains, and is said to sow and water the East.

But if you had entered some house and seen everything cultivated, arranged, and adorned, you would certainly believe that a master presided over it, and that he was far better than those good things: so likewise in this house of the world, when you survey heaven and earth, believe that there is a master and father of the universe, more beautiful than the very stars and all the parts of the world. Unless perhaps, since there is no doubt about providence, you think it must be inquired whether the heavenly kingdom is governed by the command of one or by the will of many: which itself is not difficult to make clear to one who reflects on earthly empires, which take their patterns surely from heaven: for when did a partnership in rule either begin in good faith, or end without bloodshed?

I pass over the Persians, who augur the principate from the neighing of horses; and I pass over the well-worn tale of the Thebans: on account of the kingdom of shepherds and a hut, the story of the twins is most widely known; the wars of son-in-law and father-in-law spread over the whole world: and fortune could not contain two men of so great an empire. Consider the rest: one king among bees, one leader among flocks, one ruler among herds: would you believe that in heaven the supreme power is divided, and the whole power of that true and divine empire is split? When it is plain that God, the father of all, has neither beginning nor end; who bestows birth upon all things, and perpetuity upon himself; who existed before the world, himself in place of the world; who commands all things whatsoever they are by his word, orders them by reason, and perfects them by his power.

He cannot be seen, for he is brighter than sight; nor grasped, for he is purer than touch; nor estimated, for he is greater than the senses; infinite, immeasurable, and known to himself alone, as great as he is; but for us, our breast is too narrow for understanding; and therefore we rightly esteem him thus when we call him inestimable. I will speak as I feel: he who thinks he knows the greatness of God diminishes it; he who does not wish to diminish it does not know it. Nor seek a name for God: God is a name. Names are needed where a multitude must be distinguished by the proper marks of their appellations; for God, who is alone, the word God is the whole. If I call him Father, you would think of an earthly one; if King, you would suspect something carnal; if Lord, you would understand a mortal. Remove the additions of names, and you will perceive his brightness.

What of this: I have the consent of all men on this point: I hear the common people, when they stretch their hands toward heaven, say nothing other than GOD; and, God is great; and God is true; and, If God shall grant it. Is that the natural speech of the common people, or the prayer of a confessing Christian? And those who wish Jupiter to be the chief are mistaken in the name, but agree concerning the one power.

I hear the poets too proclaiming "one Father of gods and men", and that "such is the mind of mortals as the parent of all has led the day". What of Maro of Mantua? Does he not speak more openly, more closely, more truly? "In the beginning," he says, "a spirit nourishes within heaven and earth" and the other members of the world, and a mind poured through them stirs them. "Thence the race of men and beasts," and whatever else is animate. The same author in another place names that mind and spirit God; for these are the true words: For God goes through all The lands and tracts of sea and the deep heaven, Whence men and cattle, whence rain and fire. What else is God proclaimed by us also, but mind and reason and spirit? Let us review, if you please, the teachings of the philosophers, and you will find that they, though in various expressions, yet in the very substance converge and agree upon this one opinion.

I pass over those rude and ancient men who earned the name of wise from their own sayings. Let Thales of Miletus be first of all, who was the first of all to dispute about celestial things. That Thales of Miletus said water was the beginning of all things, but that God was the mind which formed all things from water. Lo! A principle loftier and more sublime than water and spirit, such as could not have been discovered by man; it was handed down from God. You see that the opinion of that philosopher agrees with ours at its very root. Anaximenes next, and after him Diogenes of Apollonia, establish air as God, infinite and immeasurable. Their agreement also on divinity is similar. The description and motion of an infinite mind is called God by Anaxagoras. And for Pythagoras, God is a soul pervading and intent upon the universal nature of things: from which also the life of all living beings is derived.

It is well known that Xenophanes teaches that all the infinite, together with mind, is God; and Antisthenes, that the popular gods are many, but that the natural one is supreme; Speusippus, that the natural, animate force by which all things are governed is God. What of Democritus? Although the first inventor of atoms, does he not for the most part speak of nature, which pours forth images, and of intelligence, as God? Strato likewise speaks of nature: even that Epicurus who feigns the gods as either idle or nonexistent, yet places nature above them. Aristotle varies, yet assigns one power. For at one time he calls mind God, at another time the world, and at another time he sets God over the world. Aristotle of Pontus varies, at one time attributing the primacy to the world, at another to the divine mind. Heraclides of Pontus also, though variously, ascribes a divine mind to God. Theophrastus, and Zeno, and Chrysippus, and Cleanthes, are themselves also manifold; but all revolve back to the unity of providence.

For Cleanthes discoursed of God as mind, at one time as soul, at another as aether, and most often as reason. Zeno, his master, holds that the natural and divine law, and at one time aether, and at another time reason, is the principle of all things. The same man, by interpreting Juno as air, Jupiter as heaven, Neptune as the sea, fire as Vulcan, and by showing that the other gods of the common people are similarly elements, gravely convicts and refutes the public error. Much the same does Chrysippus, who holds the divine force, rational nature, and at one time the world, and at another fatal necessity, to be God, and imitates Zeno in the interpretation of natural philosophy in the poems of Hesiod, Homer, and Orpheus. It is also the discipline of Diogenes of Babylon to expound and discourse that the birth and origin of Jupiter and Minerva, and the names of other such things of this kind, are names, not of gods.

For Xenophon the Socratic denies that the form of the true God can be seen, and therefore that it ought not to be sought; Aristo of Chios the Stoic, that he cannot be comprehended at all. Both perceived the majesty of God through despair of understanding. Plato's discourse about God is more open, both in the very subject matter and in names; and it would be entirely heavenly, were it not sometimes defiled by an admixture of civic persuasion. For Plato in the Timaeus, God is by his very name the parent of the world, the artificer of the soul, the maker of things heavenly and earthly; whom it is difficult to find, on account of his exceeding and incredible power; but, when found, impossible to declare publicly, he prefaces. These things also are nearly the same as ours, for we too know God and call him the father of all, and never proclaim him publicly except when asked.

If these things had been done, they would be done; because they cannot be done, therefore they were not done either. In like manner also, our ancestors were improvident and credulous toward the gods as well, and believed with rude simplicity: while they devoutly worship their kings, while they long to see the departed in their images, while they eagerly strive to preserve their memories in statues, what had been taken up as consolations became sacred rites. Moreover, even before the world was opened up by commerce, and before nations mingled their customs and usages, each nation venerated its own founder, or a renowned leader, or a chaste queen stronger than her sex, or the discoverer of some gift or art, as a citizen of good memory. Thus a reward was given to the departed and an example to those to come.

Read the writings of the Stoics or the writings of the wise men, and you will recognize the same things along with me. That gods were held to be such on account of the merits of virtue or of a gift, Euhemerus sets forth, and enumerates their birthdays, homelands, and tombs, and points them out through the provinces: the Dictaean Jupiter, Delphic Apollo, Pharian Isis, and Eleusinian Ceres. Prodicus says that those were received among the gods who, by wandering and discovering new things, benefited the use of men. In the same opinion Persaeus also philosophizes, and connects the discovered fruits and the very discoverers of those fruits with the same names, as the comic saying goes, that Venus grows cold without Liber and Ceres.

That famous Alexander the Macedonian wrote in a notable volume to his mother, that the secret concerning the gods being men had been revealed to him by a priest, out of fear of his power: he makes Vulcan the first of all, and thereafter the race of Jupiter; and I look with contempt upon the descent of Isis to a swallow, a sistrum, and the empty tomb of your Serapis or Osiris, with his scattered members. Consider finally the sacred rites themselves and the very mysteries, and you will find sad endings, fates and deaths, and mourning and lamentation of wretched gods. Isis mourns, beats her breast, and searches for her lost son together with her Cynocephalus and her bald priests; and the wretched Isiacs beat their breasts and imitate the grief of the most unhappy mother. Soon, when the little one is found, Isis rejoices, the priests exult, the Cynocephalus glories as the finder: nor do they cease every year either to lose what they find, or to find what they lose.

Is it not ridiculous either to mourn what you worship, or to worship what you mourn? These things, however, once Egyptian, are now Roman sacred rites as well. Ceres, with torches lit and encircled by a serpent, anxiously and solicitously tracks down Libera, who has been stolen away and corrupted. These are the Eleusinian rites. And what are the sacred rites of Jupiter? A she-goat is his nurse, and the infant is hidden from his greedy father lest he be devoured; and the clashing of the Corybants' cymbals drowns out the tinkling sound, lest the father hear the crying. Cybele of Dindyma—it is shameful to say—because she herself, being ugly and old, could not entice her unfortunate beloved, who had pleased her, to debauchery, as the mother of many gods, she castrated him, so as to make him, forsooth, a eunuch god. On account of this fable the Galli worship her with the punishment of their own half-male bodies. These are no longer sacred rites; they are torments. What of the very forms and appearances?

Do they not expose the mockeries and disgraces of your gods? Vulcan is a lame and feeble god; Apollo smooth-cheeked through so many ages; Aesculapius well-bearded, though always the son of the ever-youthful Apollo; Neptune with sea-green eyes, Minerva with grey eyes, Juno with ox-like eyes, Mercury with winged feet, Pan with hooves, Saturn in fetters; and Janus carries two faces, as if he were to walk looking backward. Diana at one time is a huntress girt high; and the Ephesian one is built up with many breasts and rows of teats; and Trivia is fearsome with three heads and many hands. What? Your very Jupiter is at one time set up beardless, at another placed bearded: and when he is called Hammon, he has horns; and when Capitoline, he then bears thunderbolts; and when Latiaris, he is drenched with blood; and when Feretrius, he is not approached. And, not to range too far through the many Jupiters, there are as many monstrosities of Jupiter as there are names.

Erigone hangs from a noose, so that she may be known as Virgo among the stars. The Castors die on alternate days, so that they may live: Aesculapius is struck by lightning, so that he may rise as a god: Hercules, to put off his humanity, is burned in the fires of Oeta.

These fables and errors we learn from ignorant parents, and, what is more serious, we elaborate them through our very studies and disciplines, chiefly through the songs of the poets, who have done the greatest harm to truth itself by their own authority. And for this reason Plato rightly expelled that famous Homer, praised and crowned, from the city which he was establishing in discourse. For this poet, foremost in the Trojan war, although he makes sport of your gods, nevertheless mingled them in the affairs and actions of men: he matched them in pairs, wounded Venus, bound Mars, wounded him, put him to flight. He tells that Jupiter was freed by Briareus, lest he be bound by the other gods; and that he wept bloody rains for his son Sarpedon, because he could not snatch him from death; and that, enticed by the girdle of Venus, he lay with his wife Juno more ardently than he was wont with his adulteresses.

Elsewhere Hercules clears away dung, and Apollo pastures the flocks of Admetus; for Laomedon, Neptune builds walls, nor does the hapless builder receive the wages of his work: there the thunderbolt of Jupiter is forged on the anvil together with the arms of Aeneas, although heaven and thunderbolts and lightning existed long before Jupiter was born in Crete, and the flames of the true thunderbolt neither could the Cyclops imitate, nor could Jupiter himself refrain from fearing. Why should I speak of the adultery of Mars and Venus detected? And of the defilement of Ganymede by Jupiter, consecrated in heaven? All of which things were set forth for this purpose, that a certain authority might be procured for the vices of men. By these and similar fictions and falsehoods all the sweeter, the minds of boys are corrupted, and, clinging to these same fables, they grow up to the full strength of mature age, and in these same opinions the wretched grow old, though truth is ready at hand for those who seek it.

For Saturn, the chief of this race and company, all writers of antiquity, Greek and Roman alike, have handed down as a man. Nepos and Cassius know this in their histories, and Thallus and Diodorus say the same. This Saturn, then, a fugitive from Crete, had come to Italy in fear of his raging son, and, received into the hospitality of Janus, taught those rude and rustic men many things, as a cultivated Greek, how to impress letters, to stamp coins, to make tools. And so he preferred that his hiding-place, because he had hidden there safely, should be called Latium, and he gave a city the name of Saturnia from his own name, and Janus left Janiculum as a memorial to posterity, each after his own name.

He was therefore certainly a man who fled, certainly a man who hid, and the father of a man, and born of a man: for he was reported as a son of earth or of heaven, because among the Italians he was of unknown parents; just as to this day we call those whom we see unexpectedly, as if sent from heaven, ignoble and unknown, sons of the earth. His son Jupiter reigned in Crete after expelling his father, died there, had children there; even now the cave of Jupiter is visited, and his tomb is pointed out, and by his very own rites he is convicted of humanity.

It is idle to go through each one and unfold the whole series of this race, since the mortality proved in the first parents has flowed down into the rest by the very order of succession: unless perhaps you invent gods after death, and, with Proculus perjuring himself, Romulus is a god, and Juba, at the wish of the Moors, is a god, and the other deified kings who are consecrated, not at the end of their light, but in honor of their completed power. Against their will this name is at last ascribed to them: they desire to continue as men; they dread being made gods, even if already old, they are unwilling. Therefore neither are gods made from the dead, since God could not die; nor from the born, since everything that is born dies. But that is divine which has neither beginning nor end. For why, if they were born, are they not born even today? Unless perhaps Jupiter has now grown old and childbearing in Juno has ceased, and Minerva grew gray before she gave birth.

Or did this generation cease because no assent is given to fables of this kind? Otherwise, if gods could create, they could not perish; we would have more gods than all men, so that by now neither could heaven contain them, nor the air hold them, nor the earth bear them: whence it is manifest that those men were human whom we read to have been born and know to have died. Who then doubts that the images of these men, consecrated, are worshipped by the common people and publicly venerated? While the opinion and mind of the ignorant is deceived by the elegance of art, dazzled by the gleam of gold, dulled by the brightness and whiteness of ivory. But if anyone should bring to mind by what torments and by what machines every statue is fashioned, he will blush that he fears a material that was mocked by the craftsman even while he was making it.

For a wooden god, perhaps a portion of a funeral pyre or an ill-omened log, is hung up, cut, hewn, planed; and a golden god, more often from a foul vessel, as was done for an Egyptian king, is melted down, beaten with hammers and shaped on anvils; and a stone one is cut, carved, and smoothed by an impure man; nor does it feel the injury of its birth, just as it does not afterward feel the worship of your veneration: unless perhaps the stone or wood or silver is not yet a god. When then is it born? Behold, it is cast, fashioned, carved: it is not yet a god; behold, it is leaded together, assembled, erected: it is not yet a god; behold, it is adorned, consecrated, prayed to: then at last it is a god when a man has willed it and dedicated it.

How greatly indeed do dumb animals judge naturally concerning your gods? Mice, swallows, kites, know and are aware that they do not feel; they trample upon them, they perch upon them; and, unless you drive them away, they build their nests in the very mouth of your god. Spiders indeed weave their web over his face, and hang their threads from his very head: you wipe, clean, and scrape them, and you protect and fear those whom you make. While each one of you does not think that he ought first to know God before worshipping him; while they rashly hasten to obey their parents; while they prefer to become an addition to another's error than to trust themselves; while they know nothing of those things which they fear: thus in gold and silver avarice has been consecrated; thus the sealed form of empty statues; thus Roman superstition was born. If you were to review their rites, how many things are laughable, how many also pitiable.

Naked they run about in the raw winter; others walk about wearing felt caps, carry old shields, beat hides, begging, going from village to village, they call them gods. Certain shrines they permit to be visited only once a year, some it is sacrilege to visit at all; there is one where a man is not permitted, some rites are without women; even for a slave to attend certain ceremonies is an expiable outrage. Some rites are crowned by a woman with one husband, others by a woman with many husbands, and with great religious care she is sought out who can count the most adulteries. What? He who makes offering with his own blood and supplicates with his own wounds, would he not be better off as a profane man than as religious in this way? Or he whose shameful parts are cut away, how does he violate God, who in this manner seeks to appease him, since, if God had wanted eunuchs, he could have created them, not made them?

Who does not understand that those who are unsound in mind and of vain and ruined understanding are foolish in these things, and that the very crowd of those who err lend each other mutual support? Here the defense of the common madness is the multitude of the mad.

And yet this very superstition gave, enlarged, and founded empire for the Romans, since they prevailed not so much by valor as by religion and piety; to be sure, the distinguished and noble Roman justice was inaugurated from the very cradle of the rising empire. Did they not in their very origin gather together through crime, and grow strong, fortified by the terror of their savagery? For the first populace was assembled at a place of asylum: the desperate, the criminal, the incestuous, the murderers, the traitors had flocked together: and so that Romulus himself, their commander and ruler, might surpass his own people in crime, he committed parricide. These are the first auspices of a religious city: Soon he seized, violated, and mocked the maidens of others, already betrothed, already pledged, and some women already in marriage, without custom, and stirred up war with their parents, that is with his own fathers-in-law; he shed kindred blood. What is more irreligious, what more audacious, what more secure by the very confidence of its crime?

Already to drive neighbors from their land; to overturn the nearest cities together with their temples and altars, to compel the captives; to grow great by the losses of others and by their own crimes, this is the common discipline shared with Romulus, the other kings, and the later commanders. Thus whatever the Romans hold, cultivate, and possess is the plunder of audacity; all their temples are from spoils, that is from the ruins of cities, from the plunder of gods, from the slaughter of priests. This is to insult and mock, to serve the religions of the conquered, and to adore them as captives after victories. For to adore what you have taken by hand is to consecrate a sacrilege, not a divinity. As many times therefore has impiety been committed by the Romans, as they have triumphed; as many spoils taken from gods as trophies from nations. Therefore the Romans are great not because they are religious, but because they are sacrilegious with impunity.

For they could not have had the gods as helpers in those very wars, against whom they took up arms; and those whom they had demanded, they began to worship after triumphing over them. But what can those gods do for the Romans, who availed nothing for their own people against Roman arms? For we know the home-grown gods of the Romans: Romulus, Picus, Tiberinus, and Consus, and Pilumnus, and Polumnus. Cloacina Tatius both discovered and worshipped; Hostilius worshipped Pavor and Pallor; soon by someone or other Fever was dedicated. This superstition, nursling of that city, consists of diseases and ill health: indeed Acca Larentia and Flora, shameless harlots, are to be counted among the diseases of the Romans and their gods. These, forsooth, extended the empire of the Romans against the rest who were worshipped among the nations. For neither did Thracian Mars, nor Cretan Jupiter, nor Juno, now of Argos, now of Samos, now of Carthage; nor Tauric Diana, nor the Idaean mother, nor those Egyptian things, not divinities but monsters, help them against their own men.

Unless perhaps among these there was greater chastity of virgins or more holy religion of priests; when in nearly the greater number of virgins, and those who had mingled with men more incautiously, with Vesta surely unaware, incest was punished; in the rest, impunity was secured not by chastity more secure, but by unchastity more fortunate.

But where more than among the shrines are debaucheries hired out by priests, acts of pandering transacted, adulteries plotted? More frequently indeed in the cells of the temple-keepers than in the very granaries is burning lust spent. And yet, by God's dispensation, the Syrians, Medes, Persians, Greeks also, and Egyptians long held their kingdoms, though they had no Pontiffs, no Arval Brothers, no Salii, no Vestals, no Augurs, nor chickens shut in a cage, by whose eating or disdaining the supreme affairs of state were to be governed.

For now I come to those Roman auspices and auguries which you testified were collected with the greatest labor, and which when neglected brought ruin and when observed brought success. Did Clodius, and Flaminius, and Junius therefore lose their armies because they thought they need not await the most solemn tripudium of the sacred chickens? What of Regulus? Did he not observe the auguries, and yet was taken captive? Mancinus kept the religious rite, and was sent under the yoke and surrendered. Paulus too had voracious chickens at Cannae: yet he was laid low together with the greater part of the republic. C. Caesar, when the auguries and auspices resisted his sailing his ships across to Africa before the winter solstice, scorned them, and thereby all the more easily both sailed and conquered. But what and how many things shall I recount concerning oracles? After death Amphiaraus gave responses about things to come, who did not know that he would be betrayed by his wife for a necklace. Tiresias the blind saw the future, who did not see the present.

Ennius fabricated the responses of the Pythian Apollo concerning Pyrrhus, when Apollo had already ceased to compose verses: whose cautious and ambiguous oracle then failed, when men began to be both more refined and less credulous. And Demosthenes complained that the Pythia, as he knew, gave responses that were fabricated to favor Philip. Yet sometimes auspices or oracles have touched upon the truth. Although amid many falsehoods chance may seem to have imitated diligence, I shall nonetheless approach the very source of error and wickedness, from which all that darkness has flowed, and dig it up more deeply and lay it open more plainly. There are unclean spirits, wandering, weighed down from their celestial vigor by earthly defilements and lusts. These spirits, therefore, after they have lost the simplicity of their substance, burdened and submerged in vices, do not cease, being already ruined, to ruin others, and, being depraved, to pour in the error of their depravity, and, being estranged from God, to separate others from God by introducing wicked religions.

That these spirits are demons the poets know, the philosophers discuss, Socrates knew, who, at the nod and will of the demon attending him, either avoided affairs or pursued them. Magicians too not only know of demons, but also whatever miracles they perform, they perform through demons: with their breath and inspiration they produce illusions, either making things that do not exist appear to exist, or things that do exist appear not to exist. First among those magicians both in eloquence and in practice is Sosthenes; and he pursues the true God with deserved majesty: and he knows that angels, that is the ministers and messengers of God, but of the true God, stand in attendance upon his worship, so that even at the very nod and countenance of the Lord they tremble with terror. He likewise revealed that demons are earthly, wandering, enemies of humanity. What of Plato, who considered it a task to discover God? Does he not also recount angels without difficulty and demons? And in his Symposium too he strives to describe the nature of demons?

For he wishes their substance to be intermediate between mortal and immortal, that is, between body and spirit, compounded of a mixture of earthly weight and celestial lightness, from which he warns that even in us the longing of love is formed, and says it slips into human hearts, and stirs the senses, and shapes the passions, and pours in the ardor of desire.

These impure spirits, therefore, demons, as has been shown by magicians, by philosophers, and by Plato, lie hidden beneath consecrated statues and images, and by their breath obtain authority as though of a present divinity, while they breathe inspiration into prophets in the meantime, while they linger in shrines, while they sometimes animate the fibers of entrails, guide the flights of birds, govern lots, and produce oracles wrapped in many falsehoods. For they are both deceived and deceive, since they neither know the pure truth, and what they do know they do not confess, to their own perdition. Thus they weigh down from heaven, and draw men away from the true God toward material things, they trouble life, they disturb all, creeping also into bodies secretly, as subtle spirits, they feign diseases, terrify minds, twist limbs, so as to compel men to their worship: that, fed on the smoke of altars or on the victims of cattle, they may seem to have cured the ailments they had bound when these are released.

These are also the raving ones whom you see rushing out into public; prophets too without a temple rave in the same way, rage in the same way, are whirled about in the same way. The instigation of the demon is the same in both, but the outward sign of the frenzy differs. From these same demons also come those things spoken to you a little earlier: that Jupiter should demand the games repeated from a dream, that the Castors should be seen with their horses, that the girdle of a matron should follow a little boat. All these things most of those among you know, that the demons themselves confess from their own mouths, whenever they are driven out of bodies by us through the torments of words and the fires of prayer. Saturn himself, and Serapis, and Jupiter, and whatever demons you worship, overcome by pain, declare what they are; nor indeed do they lie to their own shame, especially with some of you standing by.

Believe their own testimony, confessing the truth about themselves, that they are demons. For when adjured by the true and only God, they shudder unwillingly in the wretched bodies, and either leap out at once or vanish gradually, according as the faith of the sufferer assists or the grace of the healer breathes upon them. Thus they flee from Christians when near at hand, whom they had been assailing from afar in your assemblies through you. Therefore, having entered the minds of the ignorant, they secretly sow hatred of us through fear: for it is natural both to hate one whom you fear, and to attack one whom you dread, if you can. Thus they take possession of souls and block up hearts, so that men begin to hate us before they know us, lest once known they might either be able to imitate us, or be unable to condemn us.

Believe those who repent: for we too did the same things, and once, still blind and dull as you are, we felt the same things as you, as though Christians worshipped monsters, devoured infants, joined in incestuous banquets: nor did we understand that these stories were always being circulated by those same persons, and were never either investigated or proved, nor that in so long a time anyone had come forward who would expose them, though he would have obtained not only pardon for the deed but even reward for the information; nor that the evil was so far from being real that a Christian defendant neither blushed nor feared, and repented of only one thing, that he had not been one sooner.

Yet we, while we undertook to defend and protect some who were sacrilegious and incestuous, even parricides, thought these people should not even be heard at all; and sometimes, pitying them, we raged more cruelly, so as to torture those who confessed into denying, forsooth lest they should perish, exercising upon them a perverse inquisition, not one that would draw out the truth, but one that would compel a lie. And if any weaker person, pressed and overcome by the evil, had denied that he was a Christian, we favored him, as though by renouncing the name he had already purged all his deeds by that denial. Do you not recognize that we felt and did the same things that you feel and do? When, if reason rather than the instigation of a demon were judging, they ought rather to be pressed, not to deny that they were Christians, but to confess to incestuous defilements, to profaned rites, to infants sacrificed.

For with these and similar fables those same demons have stuffed the ears of the ignorant against us with a horror of execration. Nor is this surprising, since human rumor, which is always otherwise consumed when truth is displayed after falsehoods have been scattered abroad, is thus the business of demons; for by them false report is both sown and fostered. Hence it is that you say you have heard that the head of an ass is our divinity. Who is so foolish as to worship this? Who more foolish, as to believe it is worshipped? Unless indeed you consecrate whole asses in your stables along with your Epona, and devoutly devour those same asses together with Isis: likewise you both sacrifice and worship the heads of oxen and the heads of rams, and you dedicate as gods figures mixed of goat and man, and faces of lions and dogs. Do you not also adore and feed the ox Apis together with the Egyptians?

Nor do you condemn their rites established with serpents, crocodiles, wild beasts of other kinds, and birds, and fishes, of which if anyone kills one that is a god, he is punished even with death. Those same Egyptians, together with most of you, fear Isis no more than the pungency of onions; nor do they tremble at Serapis more than at the noises expressed through the shameful parts of the body. Also that man who fabricates a story against us about the worshipped genitals of a priest attempts to transfer to us what belongs to his own people. For these things are perhaps the sacred rites of those whose shamelessness, among whom every sex prostitutes all its members, among whom all shamelessness is called refinement, who envy the license of harlots, who lick men in their middle parts, who cling with lustful mouth to the groins—men of evil tongue, even if they were silent; whom disgust at their own shamelessness comes before shame of it. O abomination!

They commit upon themselves that evil deed which neither a more tender age can endure, nor a harsher slavery compel.

These and similar shameful acts it is not lawful for us even to hear; to defend them before a larger audience is itself disgraceful. For you invent concerning the chaste and modest what we would not believe could be done, were it not that you prove it of yourselves. For as to your ascribing to our religion a guilty man and his cross, you wander far from the neighborhood of truth, you who think that either a guilty man deserved to be believed a god, or that an earthly being could be one. Nor is that man less wretched whose every hope rests upon a mortal man; for all his help ends with the extinction of that man. The Egyptians indeed choose for themselves a man to worship, propitiate him alone, consult him on all matters, sacrifice victims to him; and he who is a god to the rest is certainly a man to himself, whether he will or not: for he does not deceive his own conscience, even if he deceives another's.

Also toward princes and kings, not as toward great and chosen men, as is right, but as toward gods, shameful false flattery fawns upon them, when a truer honor is rendered to an illustrious man and a sweeter love to a good one. Thus they call their divinity, supplicate their images, implore their genius, that is their demon; and it is safer for them to swear falsely by the genius of Jupiter than by that of the king. Crosses also we neither worship nor desire. You plainly, who consecrate wooden gods, perhaps adore wooden crosses as parts of your gods. For the very standards and the cantabra and the military ensigns, what else are they but gilded and adorned crosses? Your victorious trophies imitate not only the appearance of a simple cross, but also of a man affixed to it.

We naturally see the sign of the cross in a ship when it is carried along with swelling sails, when it glides with outspread oars; and when a yoke is raised up, it is the sign of the cross, and when a man, with hands outstretched, worships God with a pure mind. Thus upon the sign of the cross either natural reason rests, or your religion is shaped.

I would now like to confront the man who says or believes that we are initiated through the slaughter of an infant and its blood. Do you think it possible that so tender, so tiny a body can receive the wounds of death? That anyone can shed, pour out, and drain that raw blood of a newborn, scarcely yet a human being? No one can believe this unless he could dare to do it. For I see that you expose your newborn children now to wild beasts and birds, now strangle them with a wretched kind of death. There are women who, by drugs and potions taken into their very wombs, extinguish the beginning of a future human being, and commit infanticide before they give birth. And these things assuredly descend from the teaching of your gods; for Saturn did not expose his children, but devoured them. Rightly therefore in certain parts of Africa infants were sacrificed by their parents, with a caress and a kiss suppressing their crying lest a weeping victim should be sacrificed.

Among the Taurians of Pontus and the Egyptian Busiris it was the custom to sacrifice guests, and to the Gallic Mercury to slay human, or rather inhuman, victims: the Romans buried alive a Greek man and a Greek woman, a Gallic man and a Gallic woman, as living sacrifices; and to this day the Latiaris Jupiter is worshipped among them with homicide; and, as befits the son of Saturn, he is fed with the blood of an evil and guilty man. I believe it was he who taught Catiline to bind his conspiracy with a covenant of blood, and Bellona to steep her rite with a draught of human blood; and to cure the falling sickness with a man's blood, that is, with a worse disease. Not unlike these are those who in the arena devour wild beasts smeared and stained with blood, or fattened on the limbs and entrails of men.

For us it is not lawful even to see or hear of homicide; and so carefully do we abstain from human blood that we do not even partake of the blood of edible animals in our food.

And concerning the incestuous banquet, demons fabricated a great tale against us, so as to stain the glory of our chastity with shameful infamy, and to turn men away from us, before the truth had been examined, by the terror of an unspeakable accusation; thus your Fronto also, regarding this matter, did not bear witness as one who affirms, but scattered abuse as an orator. For these things were born rather among your own peoples. It is lawful among the Persians to mingle with their mothers; among the Egyptians and Athenians, marriages with sisters are legal; your histories and tragedies glory in incests, which you both willingly read and hear: so also you worship gods who are incestuous, joined with mother, with daughter, with sister.

Rightly therefore is incest among you often detected, always committed; even unknowingly, wretched ones, you can rush into unlawful acts, while you scatter Venus promiscuously, while you sow children everywhere, while you frequently expose even those born at home to the mercy of strangers—it must needs be that you come back to your own, that you wander into your children. Thus you weave the tale of incest, even when you have no awareness of it. But we display modesty not in face but in mind. We gladly cleave to the bond of one marriage; in the desire of procreation we know either one woman, or none.

We cultivate banquets that are not only chaste but also sober: for we do not indulge in feasts, nor do we prolong the banquet with unmixed wine; but we temper cheerfulness with gravity, with chaste speech, with a body yet more chaste; very many enjoy rather than boast of perpetual virginity of an inviolate body: so far indeed is the desire of incest from us, that for some even a chaste union is a cause of blush. Nor do we consist of the lowest rabble alone, if we refuse your honours and purple robes: nor are we factious, if we all think alike of the one good, gathered together in the same tranquillity as each one apart: nor are we garrulous in corners, if you either blush or fear to hear us in public. And the fact that our numbers increase day by day is not a proof of error, but a testimony of praise. For in a noble manner of living, one's own perseveres and excels, and the stranger's is added.

So finally we easily distinguish ourselves—not by a mark on the body, as you suppose, but by the sign of innocence and modesty: so we love one another with that mutual love which grieves you, since we know not how to hate: so we call one another brothers, which you envy, as men of one God the Father, as sharers of faith, as co-heirs of hope. For you do not even acknowledge one another, and you rage in mutual hatreds: nor do you recognise one another as brothers, unless indeed for the purpose of parricide.

Do you think that we conceal what we worship, because we have no shrines and altars? For what image of God shall I fashion, when, if you judge rightly, man himself is the image of God? What temple shall I build for him, when this whole world, fashioned by his work, cannot contain him? And, when I, a man, dwell more widely, shall I enclose the power of so great a majesty within a single little building? Is it not better that he be dedicated in our mind, that he be consecrated in our inmost heart? Shall I offer victims and sacrifices to the Lord, which he has brought forth for my use, that I may cast them back and reject his own gift? That is ungrateful: since a good spirit, and a pure mind, and a sincere conscience is an acceptable sacrifice. Therefore, he who cultivates innocence supplicates the Lord; he who cultivates justice makes libation to God; he who abstains from fraud propitiates God; he who rescues a man from danger slays the best victim.

These are our sacrifices, these are the sacred rites of God; thus among us he is the more religious who is the more just. But indeed, the God whom we worship we neither show nor see; nay, from this very fact we believe him to be God, that we can perceive him, but cannot see him. For in his works and in all the motions of the world we behold his power ever present, when it thunders, lightens, hurls the thunderbolt, when it makes fair weather. Nor wonder that you do not see God: by wind and blasts all things are driven, vibrated, agitated; and yet wind and blast do not come under the eyes. In the sun itself, which is the cause of seeing for all, we cannot look; the sight is driven back by its rays, the gaze of the beholder is dulled: and if you look too long, all vision is extinguished. What?

Could you endure the very maker of the sun, that fountain of light, when you turn away from its brightness, when you hide from its thunderbolts? You wish to see God with fleshly eyes, when you can neither behold nor grasp your own soul, by which you are quickened and speak? But God, they say, is ignorant of the acts of man, and, established in heaven, can neither visit all nor know each one. You err, O man, and are deceived. For how is God far away, when all things heavenly and earthly, and those things that are beyond the bounds of this world, are known to God and full of him? He is everywhere not only near to us, but infused into us. Look again at the sun: fixed to the sky, it is yet spread over all lands; equally present everywhere, it attends and mingles with all things, for its brightness is nowhere diminished.

How much more does God, the author of all things and the beholder of all things, from whom no secret can exist, attend upon darkness, attend upon our thoughts as upon another kind of darkness. Not only do we act beneath him, but, so to speak, we live with him, as I may almost say.

Nor let us flatter ourselves on account of our numbers: we seem many to ourselves, but before God we are exceedingly few. We distinguish nations and peoples: for God this whole world is one household. Kings know all things throughout their realm only through the services of ministers; God has no need of informers: we live not only before his eyes, but in his very bosom. But the Jews profited nothing from the fact that they too worshipped the one God with altars and temples in great superstition. You fall into error through ignorance, if, forgetful or unaware of earlier things, you call to mind only the later.

For they too worshipped our God—for he is the God of all alike: as long as they worshipped him chastely, blamelessly, and religiously, as long as they obeyed his wholesome commandments, from few they became innumerable, from poor they became rich, from servants they became kings; being few, they overwhelmed many, being unarmed they overwhelmed the armed, as they fled those who pursued them, by God's command and with the elements aiding. Read again their scriptures, or, if you take more pleasure in Roman writers, to pass over the ancients, consult Flavius Josephus or Antoninus Julianus on the Jews: you will then learn that by their own wickedness they deserved this fortune, and that nothing has befallen them which was not foretold to them, if they persevered in their stubbornness, beforehand. Thus you will understand that they first forsook him before they were forsaken: and that, as you impiously say, they were not taken captive together with their God, but were given up by God as deserters from his discipline.

Moreover, concerning the conflagration of the world, to think that fire falls unexpectedly, or that it is difficult to believe this, is a vulgar error. For which of the wise doubts, which is ignorant, that all things which have risen must set; that all things which have been made must perish? That the sky too, with all things contained in the sky, must cease, just as it began? That the sweet water of springs, which feeds the seas, will pass into the force of fire? It is the constant opinion of the Stoics that, when moisture is consumed, this whole world will be set ablaze; and among the Epicureans, concerning the conflagration of the elements and the ruin of the world, the very same opinion holds.

Plato speaks. He says that parts of the world are now inundated, now in turn set ablaze, and, though he said that the world itself was made perpetual and indissoluble, he adds nevertheless that even to its maker, to God alone, it is both dissoluble and mortal. Thus it is no wonder if this great mass is destroyed by him by whom it was constructed. You observe that the philosophers dispute the same things that we say; not because we have followed in their footsteps, but because they, drawing from the divine proclamations of the prophets, imitated a shadow of adulterated truth. So also the more illustrious of the wise men, Pythagoras first, and Plato pre-eminently, handed down the condition of rebirth with a corrupted and halved faith: for they hold that when bodies are dissolved, souls alone both endure perpetually and pass frequently into other new bodies. They add to these things also those further notions to distort the truth—that the souls of men return into cattle, birds, and beasts.

This opinion is worthy not of a philosopher's zeal, but of a mime's vice. But for our present purpose it is enough that even in this matter your wise men agree with us to some degree. Furthermore, who is so foolish or brutish as to dare to deny that man, who could first be fashioned by God, can likewise be reformed anew? That there is nothing after death, and that there was nothing before birth; that just as it was permitted to be born from nothing, so it is permitted to be restored from nothing? Moreover, it is more difficult for that which does not exist to begin, than for that which has existed to be repeated. Do you believe that anything perishes before God? Whatever is withdrawn from our dim eyes is preserved for him. Every body, whether it dries into dust or dissolves into moisture, or is compressed into ash, or is thinned into vapour, is withdrawn from us; but it is preserved for God by the custody of the elements.

Nor, as you believe, do we fear any harm from burial, but we practise the ancient and better custom of interment. See moreover how all nature meditates the future resurrection as a consolation for us! The sun sinks and rises, the stars set and return, the flowers die and revive, after old age the shrubs put forth leaves, the seeds do not revive unless they have first decayed: so the body in the age of the world, like trees in winter, conceals its verdure under a feigned dryness. Why do you hasten for it to revive and return while the winter is yet raw? We must await the spring of the body also.

Nor am I unaware that many, by reason of the consciousness of their deserts, prefer to believe rather than to hope that they are nothing after death: for they prefer to be utterly extinguished than to be restored to punishments—men whose error is increased both by the licence granted in this world and by the exceeding patience of God: whose judgment, the more slowly it comes, is the more just.

And yet men are admonished, in the books and songs of the most learned poets, of that fiery river, and of the burning that more than once encircles the Stygian swamp, which they have handed down as prepared for eternal torments, made known both by the testimony of demons and by the oracles of the prophets. And therefore among them even Jupiter himself swears solemnly by the torrential banks and the black abyss; for, foreknowing the punishment destined for himself and his worshippers, he shudders at it. Nor is there any measure or end to the torments. There the wise fire burns and restores the limbs; it consumes and nourishes, just as the fires of thunderbolts touch bodies without consuming them; just as the fires of Mount Etna and Mount Vesuvius, and of burning lands everywhere, blaze without being spent: so that penal conflagration is not fed by the destruction of those who burn, but is sustained by the unceasing laceration of their bodies.

But that those who know not God are justly tormented, as impious, as unjust, no one who is not himself profane deliberates against, since to be ignorant of the Father of all and the Lord of all is no less a crime than to injure him. And although ignorance of God is sufficient for punishment, so that knowledge of him avails for pardon, yet, if Christians are compared with you, although in some respects our discipline falls short, we shall not be found inferior to you in any point. For you forbid adultery, and commit it; we are born as husbands to our wives alone: you punish crimes once committed; among us even to think is to sin: you fear witnesses; we fear conscience alone, without which we cannot exist. Finally, from your number the prison seethes: no Christian is there, unless as one accused on account of his religion, or as a fugitive.

Let no one take comfort from fate, nor excuse an outcome by it. Let fortune's lot be what it may, yet the mind is free: and therefore the act of a man, not his station, is judged. For what else is fate but what God has spoken as fate concerning each one of us? Who, since he can foreknow the matter, determines even the fates of individuals according to their merits and qualities. Thus in our case it is not the birth-sign that is punished, but the nature of the character that is chastised. And enough of fate: or if but a few words for the present, we shall dispute it at another time both more fully and more completely. Furthermore, that very many of us are called poor is not our disgrace but our glory: for as the mind is dissolved by luxury, so it is strengthened by frugality: and yet, who can be poor who lacks nothing, who does not covet another's goods, who is rich in God?

That man is poorer who, though he has much, desires more. Yet I will say what I think: no one can be as poor as he was at birth. Birds live without inheritance, and are fed day by day on pasture, and yet these things were born for us: all of which, if we do not covet them, we possess. Therefore, as one who treads a road travels the more happily the lighter he goes, so in this journey of life he is the more blessed who relieves himself by poverty and does not groan under the burden of riches. And yet, if we thought wealth useful, we would ask it of God: he who owns all things could surely grant some measure. But we prefer to despise riches rather than to hold them in check; we desire innocence more, we demand patience more; we prefer to be good rather than lavish. And that we feel and suffer the human failings of the body is not a punishment, it is a campaign.

For fortitude is strengthened by infirmities, and calamity 352 is more often the discipline of virtue. Indeed, the powers both of mind and body grow sluggish without the exercise of toil; all your brave men, whom you extol as examples, flourished in renown through their own hardships. And so God neither cannot help us nor despises us, since he is both the ruler of all and the lover of his own; but in adversity he tests and examines each one; he weighs the character of individuals through dangers; even unto the last death he inquires into the will of man, secure that nothing can perish for him. Therefore, as gold is proved by fire, so we are proved by trials.

How beautiful a spectacle for God, when a Christian contends with pain, when he is drawn up against threats and punishments and torments; when he treads down with contempt the din of death and the horror of the executioner; when he raises his freedom against kings and princes; when he yields only to God, to whom he belongs; when, as a triumphant victor, he mocks the very man who pronounced sentence against him! For he has conquered who obtained what he strove for. What soldier would not more boldly court danger under the eyes of his commander? For no one receives a reward before the test: and yet the commander gives what he does not have; he cannot extend life, he can honour service. But the soldier of God is neither abandoned in pain nor ended by death. Thus a Christian may seem wretched, but cannot be found to be so. You yourselves exalt to the heavens men in calamity, Mucius Scaevola, who, having erred against the king, would have perished among enemies had he not destroyed his right hand.

And how many of our people have endured not the right hand alone, but the whole body being burned and consumed, without any cries of lamentation, especially when they had the power to be released? I compare men with Mucius, or with Aquilius or Regulus? Our boys and frail women, with patience of pain breathed into them, mock crosses and torments, wild beasts, and all the terrors of punishments. Nor do you understand, O wretched ones, that no one either wishes to endure punishment without reason, or can sustain torments without God. Unless perhaps you are deceived by the fact that those who know not God abound in riches; flourish in honours, are mighty in powers. Wretched men! They are raised up the higher for this, that they may fall the higher. For they, like victims, are fattened for punishment; like sacrificial animals, they are crowned for penalty.

For this very reason certain men are raised up to empires and dominions, that their character of a ruined mind may freely traffic in the licence of power: for without the knowledge of God, what solid happiness can there be, when death is like a dream? Before it is grasped, it slips away. You are a king? And you fear as much as you are feared; and however great a retinue surrounds you, yet in danger you are alone. You are rich? But fortune is not to be trusted, and a brief journey of life is not furnished but burdened by great provision for the way. You glory in fasces and purple? The vain error of man and the empty cultivation of dignity, to shine in purple while growing base in mind. You are noble by birth? You praise your ancestors? Yet we are all born with equal lot; we are distinguished by virtue alone.

We therefore, who are esteemed for our character and modesty, rightly abstain from your evil pleasures and your pomps and spectacles: whose origin from sacred rites we know, and whose harmful allurements we condemn. For in the chariot-games, who would not shudder at the madness of the people quarrelling among themselves? In the gladiatorial games, at the school of murder? In the theatrical shows also there is no less shamelessness than frenzy, and it is more prolonged: for now the mime either exposes adulteries or displays them; now the enervated actor, while feigning love, inflicts it. The same man, by putting on the debaucheries, sighs, hatreds, and shames of your gods, dishonours them. The same man, with simulated griefs, provokes your tears by vain gestures and nods. Thus you demand murder in reality, and weep at a fiction.

That we despise the remnants of sacrifices and cups that have been tasted is not a confession of fear, but an assertion of true freedom. For although everything that is born, as an inviolable gift of God, is corrupted by no act, we nevertheless abstain, lest anyone suppose either that we yield to the demons to whom libation has been made, or that we are ashamed of our religion. But who is there who doubts that we indulge in the flowers of spring, since we gather both the rose of spring and the lily, and whatever else among flowers has a pleasing colour and fragrance? For we use these scattered, soft and loose, and we encircle our necks with garlands. Indeed, that we do not crown our heads, forgive us. We are accustomed to draw the fragrance of a good flower through our nostrils, not to drink it in through the back of the head or the hair. Nor do we crown the dead.

I marvel at you more in this regard, how you bestow upon one who is lifeless and does not feel it, a torch, or upon one who does not feel it, a crown; since the blessed man has no need of it, and the wretched man takes no joy in flowers. But we adorn our funerals with the same tranquillity with which we live. Nor do we bind on a withering crown, but we are sustained by God with living eternal flowers, who, being modest and secure in the generosity of our God, are animated by the hope of future happiness through faith in his present majesty. Thus we both rise again in blessedness, and by contemplation of what is to come we live the way.

Accordingly let Socrates, the Attic buffoon, look to it, who confessed he knew nothing, though glorified by the testimony of a most deceitful demon: let Arcesilaus also and Carneades, and Pyrrho, and all the multitude of the Academics deliberate: let Simonides also defer indefinitely the comprehension of it; we despise the brows of the philosophers, whom we know to be corrupters and adulterers and tyrants; and ever eloquent against their own vices. We prefer wisdom not in dress but in mind; we do not speak great things, but we live them: we glory in having attained what they sought with the utmost effort, and could not find. Why are we ungrateful? Why do we begrudge ourselves, if the truth of Divinity has ripened in the age of our time? Let us enjoy our good, and temper the judgment of right: let superstition be restrained, let impiety be expiated, let true religion be preserved.

When Octavius had finished speaking, we remained for some time struck into silence, holding our faces intent: and, as for me, I was overwhelmed by the greatness of my admiration, because he had adorned with arguments and examples and the authority of his reading those things which are easier to feel than to say; and because he had beaten back the malicious with those very weapons of the philosophers with which they are armed; and had shown also that truth is not only easy, but even winning.

While therefore I was turning these things over silently within myself, Caecilius burst out: I congratulate my Octavius exceedingly with the same tranquillity with which we live, but I also congratulate myself, and I do not await the verdict. We have won, and in such a way that I wrongfully claim the victory for myself: for as he is the victor over me, so I am the triumphant conqueror of error. And so, as regards the sum of the question, I confess providence, and I yield to God, and concerning the sect, I now agree with the sincerity of ours; yet even now some things remain settled, not obstructing the truth, but necessary for complete instruction: concerning which tomorrow, since the sun is now declining toward its setting, we shall inquire more fittingly and more readily, as about the whole.

But I, I said, rejoice more abundantly on behalf of all of us, because Octavius has also conquered for my sake, since the great odium of judging has been removed from me. Yet I cannot repay the merit of his words with praises. The testimony of a man, and of one man, is weak. He has an extraordinary gift of God, by whom he was both inspired when he pleaded, and aided when he prevailed. After this we departed joyful and glad, Caecilius because he had believed, Octavius rejoicing because he had conquered; I, both because he had believed, and he had conquered.