To Scapula

We worship one God, whom you all know naturally, at whose lightnings and thunders you tremble, at whose benefits you rejoice. The others you yourselves suppose to be gods, whom we know to be demons. Nevertheless it is a matter of human right and natural power for each person to worship what he has thought fit; nor does the religion of one man either harm or profit another. But it is not in the nature of religion to compel religion, which ought to be taken up willingly, not by force: since sacrifices also are required from a willing mind. So even if you compel us to sacrifice, you will render no service to your gods; for they will not desire sacrifices from the unwilling—unless they are contentious; but God is not contentious. Indeed, He who is the true God bestows all His gifts equally upon the profane and upon His own. And therefore He has also appointed an eternal judgment upon the grateful and the ungrateful alike.

Yet we, whom you regard as sacrilegious, have never been caught in theft, much less in sacrilege. But all those who plunder temples, and swear by the gods, and worship those same gods, are not Christians, and yet are caught in sacrilege nonetheless. It would take long to recount in how many other ways all the gods are both mocked and despised by their own worshippers. So also concerning the majesty of the Emperor we are defamed, yet never could any Albiniani, or Nigriani, or Cassiani be found to be Christians; but those very same persons who had sworn by the emperors' genii right up to the day before, who had both offered and vowed sacrifices for their safety, who had often condemned Christians, were found to be their enemies.

A Christian is the enemy of no one, least of all of the Emperor; knowing that the Emperor is appointed by his own God, he must needs both love him, and reverence him, and honor him, and desire his safety, together with the whole Roman empire, for as long as the age shall endure. For so long shall it endure. We therefore worship the Emperor in such a manner as is both lawful for us and expedient for him: as a man second to God, and whatever he is, having received it from God, inferior to God alone. This too he himself will desire. For thus he is greater than all, in that he is less only than the true God; thus too he is greater than the gods themselves, since they also are under his power. Therefore we also offer sacrifice for the safety of the Emperor, but to our God and his God; yet in the manner that God has commanded, with pure prayer.

For God, the creator of the universe, has no need of any odor or blood. For these are the food of demons. But demons we not only reject, but also refute, and daily expose, and drive out of men, as is known to very many. Thus we pray all the more for the safety of the Emperor, seeking it from Him who is able to grant it. And surely it can be sufficiently plain to you that we act in accordance with the discipline of divine patience, when so great a multitude of people, nearly the greater part of any city, live in silence and modesty, known individually perhaps more than all together; and recognizable by nothing else than by the amendment of our former vices. For far be it from us to take it ill that we suffer what we desire, or to contrive any vengeance for ourselves, which we await from God.

Yet (as we said above) we must needs grieve, that no city shall bear with impunity the shedding of our blood, as also under the governor Hilarianus, when they had cried out concerning the plots of our burial grounds: Let there be no burial grounds; their own burial grounds were no more. For they did not bring in their harvests. Moreover, what the human race deserved through the rain of the past year was made plain—namely, that there had been a flood in former times also on account of the unbelief and iniquities of men; and what the fires that recently hung over the walls of Carthage throughout the night threatened, those who saw them know; and what the former thunders sounded, those who hardened themselves know. All these are signs of the impending wrath of God, which we must needs, in whatever way we can, both announce and foretell, and meanwhile pray that it be local: for the universal and final wrath they shall feel in its own time, who interpret its examples otherwise.

For even that sun at the assembly at Utica, with its light almost extinguished, was so great a portent that it could not have suffered this from an ordinary eclipse, being placed in its own exaltation and mansion. You have astrologers. We are equally able to set before you also the ends of certain governors, who in the last part of their lives remembered that they had done wrong in having harassed Christians. Vigellius Saturninus, who first here drew the sword against us, lost his sight. Claudius Lucius Herminianus in Cappadocia, when, taking it ill that his wife had gone over to this sect, he had treated Christians cruelly, and was left alone in his praetorium laid waste by plague, and had boiled alive with worms: Let no one know, he said, lest the Christians rejoice. Afterwards, having recognized his error, in that he had caused some to fall away from their purpose by torments, he died almost a Christian. Caecilius Capella at that destruction of Byzantium: Christians, rejoice, he cried out.

But even those who seem to themselves to have escaped with impunity will come to the day of divine judgment. For you too we desire that it may have been only a warning, in that when you had condemned Mavilus of Hadrumetum to the beasts, this affliction immediately followed, and now from the same cause there is an appeal of blood. But remember this for the future.

We do not terrify you, who are not ourselves afraid: but I would wish, since we are able to save all men by warning them, not to fight against God. You are able both to discharge the duty of your jurisdiction and to keep humanity in mind, even because you yourselves also are under the sword. For what more is commanded you, than to condemn the guilty who have confessed, but to bring back to torture those who deny? You see therefore how you yourselves act contrary to your mandates, in that you compel those who have confessed to deny. So thoroughly do you acknowledge that we are innocent, since you are unwilling to condemn us immediately upon confession. But if you press on to destroy us, then you are making war upon innocence itself. How many governors, moreover, both more resolute and more cruel, have turned a blind eye to cases of this kind!

As Cincius Severus, who at Thysdrus himself provided the remedy, suggesting how Christians should answer so that they might be dismissed; as Vespronius Candidus, who dismissed a Christian as one who was merely disturbing his fellow-citizens, on his giving satisfaction; as Asper, who, after slightly tormenting a man who immediately gave way, did not even compel him to sacrifice, having first declared before the advocates and assessors that he was sorry to have fallen upon this case. Pudens also, when a Christian had been sent to him in a charge and he perceived the extortion in it, dismissed him, tearing up the same charge, declaring that without an accuser he would not hear a man according to the mandate. All these things can be suggested to you both from your official duty and by those same advocates, who themselves have received benefits from Christians, though they cry out whatever they will.

For even a certain man's secretary, when he was being hurled down by a demon, was set free; and the kinsman and young child of certain persons, and how many men of rank (for we do not speak of common people) have been healed either of demons or of diseases! Even Severus himself, the father of Antoninus, was mindful of Christians. For he also sought out Proculus the Christian, surnamed Torpacion, steward of Euhodias, who had once cured him with oil, and kept him in his own palace until his death; whom also Antoninus knew very well, having been brought up on Christian milk. But Severus also, knowing that most illustrious women and most illustrious men belonged to this sect, not only did not harm them, but even honored them with his testimony, and openly withstood the people raging against us. Marcus Aurelius also, in the German expedition, obtained rains by the prayers of Christian soldiers made to God, in that thirst. When have not our genuflections and fastings driven away droughts as well?

Then also the people, crying out to the God of gods, who alone is mighty, bore witness to our God in the name of Jupiter. Besides these things, we do not deny a deposit, we commit adultery with no man's wife, we treat orphans with piety, we give refreshment to the needy, we render evil for evil to no one. Let those look to it who falsely represent the sect, whom we ourselves also reject. Who, in the end, complains of a Christian on any other charge? What other trouble does a Christian suffer except that of his own sect? No one has ever proved it to be incestuous, no one cruel, in all this time. For such great innocence, for such great uprightness, for justice, for chastity, for faithfulness, for truth, for the living God, we are burned; which not even sacrilegious men, not even public enemies, nor indeed so many persons guilty of treason are accustomed to suffer.

For even now this name is harassed by the governor of the legion and by the governor of Mauretania, but only to the point of the sword, as it was commanded from the beginning that such persons should be punished. But greater contests are followed by greater rewards.

Your cruelty is our glory. Only see to it lest by this very fact, that we endure such things, we seem to break forth for this sole purpose, to prove that we do not fear these things, but even call for them of our own accord. Arrius Antoninus, when he was pressing the persecution earnestly in Asia, all the Christians of that city presented themselves before his tribunals in a body; whereupon he, having ordered a few to be led away, said to the rest, O wretches, if you wish to die, you have cliffs or ropes. If it should please him to do the same here, what will you do with so many thousands of people, so many men and women, of every sex, every age, every rank, presenting themselves to you? With how many fires, with how many swords will there be need?

What will Carthage herself have to suffer, being decimated by you, when each person shall have recognized there his kinsmen, his companions, when he shall have seen there perhaps men of your own order and matrons, and all the leading persons, and the kinsmen or friends of your friends? Spare yourself therefore, if not us; spare Carthage, if not yourself; spare the province, which, having been made liable by the sight of your intention, has been exposed to the extortions both of soldiers and of its own enemies of every kind. We have no master but God alone. He is before you, and cannot be hidden, yet is one against whom you can do nothing. But those whom you suppose to be your masters are themselves also men who will one day die. Yet this sect shall not fail, which you should know is then most built up when it is seen to be cut down.

For whoever, beholding so great endurance, is struck as it were with some scruple, is also inflamed to inquire what is the reason for it, and when he has come to know the truth, he himself straightway follows.