Chapter I.

The earth brings forth, as if by suppuration, great evil from the diminutive scorpion. The poisons are as many as are the kinds of it, the disasters as many as are also the species of it, the pains as many as are also the colours of it. Nicander writes on the subject of scorpions, and depicts them. And yet to smite with the tail—which tail will be whatever is prolonged from the hindmost part of the body, and scourges—is the one movement which they all use when making an assault. Wherefore that succession of knots in the scorpion, which in the inside is a thin poisoned veinlet, rising up with a bow-like bound, draws tight a barbed sting at the end, after the manner of an engine for shooting missiles.  From which circumstance they also call after the scorpion, the warlike implement which, by its being drawn back, gives an impetus to the arrows. The point in their case is also a duct of extreme minuteness, to inflict the wound; and where it penetrates, it pours out poison. The usual time of danger is the summer season: fierceness hoists the sail when the wind is from the south and the south-west. Among cures, certain substances supplied by nature have very great efficacy; magic also puts on some bandage; the art of healing counteracts with lancet and cup. For some, making haste, take also beforehand a protecting draught; but sexual intercourse drains it off, and they are dry again. We have faith for a defence, if we are not smitten with distrust itself also, in immediately making the sign1    Of the cross over the wounded part. [This translation is frequently weakened by useless interpolations; some of these destroying the author’s style, for nothing, I have put into footnotes or dropped.] and adjuring,2    I.e. adjuring the part, in the name of Jesus, and besmearing the poisoned heel with the gore of the beast, when it has been crushed to death. [So the translator; but the terse rhetoric of the original is not so circumstantial, and refers, undoubtedly, to the lingering influence of miracles, according to St. Mark xvi. 18.] and besmearing the heel with the beast.  Finally, we often aid in this way even the heathen, seeing we have been endowed by God with that power which the apostle first used when he despised the viper’s bite.3    Acts xxviii. 3. What, then, does this pen of yours offer, if faith is safe by what it has of its own?  That it may be safe by what it has of its own also at other times, when it is subjected to scorpions of its own.  These, too, have a troublesome littleness, and are of different sorts, and are armed in one manner, and are stirred up at a definite time, and that not another than one of burning heat.  This among Christians is a season of persecution. When, therefore, faith is greatly agitated, and the Church burning, as represented by the bush,4    Ex. iii. 2. then the Gnostics break out, then the Valentinians creep forth, then all the opponents of martyrdom bubble up, being themselves also hot to strike, penetrate, kill. For, because they know that many are artless and also inexperienced, and weak moreover, that a very great number in truth are Christians who veer about with the wind and conform to its moods, they perceive that they are never to be approached more than when fear has opened the entrances to the soul, especially when some display of ferocity has already arrayed with a crown the faith of martyrs.  Therefore, drawing along the tail hitherto, they first of all apply it to the feelings, or whip with it as if on empty space. Innocent persons undergo such suffering. So that you may suppose the speaker to be a brother or a heathen of the better sort. A sect troublesome to nobody so dealt with! Then they pierce. Men are perishing without a reason. For that they are perishing, and without a reason, is the first insertion. Then they now strike mortally. But the unsophisticated souls5    The opponents of martyrdoms are meant.—Tr. know not what is written, and what meaning it bears, where and when and before whom we must confess, or ought, save that this, to die for God, is, since He preserves me, not even artlessness, but folly, nay madness. If He kills me, how will it be His duty to preserve me? Once for all Christ died for us, once for all He was slain that we might not be slain. If He demands the like from me in return, does He also look for salvation from my death by violence? Or does God importune for the blood of men, especially if He refuses that of bulls and he-goats?6    Ps. l. 13. Assuredly He had rather have the repentance than the death of the sinner.7    Ezek. xxxiii. 11. And how is He eager for the death of those who are not sinners? Whom will not these, and perhaps other subtle devices containing heretical poisons, pierce either for doubt if not for destruction, or for irritation if not for death? As for you, therefore, do you, if faith is on the alert, smite on the spot the scorpion with a curse, so far as you can, with your sandal, and leave it dying in its own stupefaction? But if it gluts the wound, it drives the poison inwards, and makes it hasten into the bowels; forthwith all the former senses become dull, the blood of the mind freezes, the flesh of the spirit pines away, loathing for the Christian name is accompanied by a sense of sourness. Already the understanding also seeks for itself a place where it may throw up; and thus, once for all, the weakness with which it has been smitten breathes out wounded faith either in heresy or in heathenism. And now the present state of matters is such, that we are in the midst of an intense heat, the very dog-star of persecution,—a state originating doubtless with the dog-headed one himself.8    i.e. the devil.—Tr. Of some Christians the fire, of others the sword, of others the beasts, have made trial; others are hungering in prison for the martyrdoms of which they have had a taste in the meantime by being subjected to clubs and claws9    An instrument of torture, so called.—Tr. besides. We ourselves, having been appointed for pursuit, are like hares being hemmed in from a distance; and heretics go about according to their wont.  Therefore the state of the times has prompted me to prepare by my pen, in opposition to the little beasts which trouble our sect, our antidote against poison, that I may thereby effect cures.  You who read will at the same time drink. Nor is the draught bitter. If the utterances of the Lord are sweeter than honey and the honeycombs,10    Ps. xix. 10. the juices are from that source. If the promise of God flows with milk and honey,11    Ex. iii. 17. the ingredients which go to make that draught have the smack of this. “But woe to them who turn sweet into bitter, and light into darkness.”12    Isa. v. 20. For, in like manner, they also who oppose martyrdoms, representing salvation to be destruction, transmute sweet into bitter, as well as light into darkness; and thus, by preferring this very wretched life to that most blessed one, they put bitter for sweet, as well as darkness for light.

CAPUT PRIMUM.

Magnum de modico malum scorpios terra suppurat: tot venena, quot genera ; tot pernicies, quot et species; tot dolores, quot et colores , Nicander scribit et pingit: et tamen unus omnium violentiae gestus nocere de cauda; quae cauda erit, quodcumque de postumo corporis propagatur, et verberat. Proinde scorpii series illa 0121B nodorum, venenata intrinsecus venula subtilis, arcuato 0122A impetu surgens , hamatile spiculum in summo tormenti ratione stringit; unde et bellicam machinam, retractu tela vegetantem , de scorpio nominant. Id spiculum , et fistula est, patula tenuitate in vulnus et virus, qua figit effundit . Familiare periculi tempus aestas ; Austro et Africo saevitia velificat . In remediis naturalia plurima ; aliquid et magia circumligat, medicina cum ferro et poculo occurrit. Nam et praebibunt quidam , festinando tutelam; sed concubitus exhaurit , et denuo sitiunt. Nobis fides praesidium, si non et ipsa percutitur diffidentia signandi statim et adjurandi , et urgendi bestiae calcem: hoc denique modo etiam ethnicis saepe subvenimus; donati a Deo ea potestate , quam Apostolus dedicavit (Act., XXVIII), cum 0122B morsum viperae sprevit. Quid ergo promittit stylus 0123A iste, si fides de suo tuta est? Ut et alias de suo tuta sit, cum suos scorpios patitur. Acerba mediocritas et istis , et genus varium, et uno modo armantur, et certo tempore subornantur, nec alio quam ardoris. Hoc apud Christianos persecutio est. Cum igitur fides aestuat, et Ecclesia exuritur de figura rubi, tunc Gnostici erumpunt, tunc Valentiniani proserpunt, tunc omnes martyriorum refragatores ebulliunt, calentes et ipsi offendere, figere, occidere. Nam quod sciant multos simplices ac rudes, tum infirmos, plerosque vero in ventum, et si placuerit, christianos, nunquam magis adeundos sapiunt , quam cum aditus animae formido laxavit; praesertim cum aliqua atrocitas fidem martyrum coronavit. Itaque primo 0123B trahentes adhuc caudam de affectibus applicant , aut quasi in vacuum flagellant. Haeccine pati homines innocentes? ut putes fratrem, aut de melioribus ethnicum? Siccine tractari sectam nemini molestam? Dehinc adigunt, perire homines sine caussa. Perire enim, et sine caussa , prima fixura. Exinde jam caedunt. Sed nesciunt simplices animae, quid, quomodo scriptum sit, ubi, et quando, et coram quibus confitendum, nisi quod nec simplicitas 0124A ista, sed vanitas, imo dementia, pro Deo mori. Et: Quis me salvum faciat , si is occidet, qui salvum facere debebit? Semel Christus pro nobis obiit, semel occisus est ne occideremur. Si vicem repetit, nunc et ille salutem de mea nece exspectat? An Deus hominum mundi sanguinem flagitat, maxime si taurorum et hircorum (Ps., LIX, 13) recusat? Certe peccatoris poenitentiam mavult quam mortem (Ezech. XVIII, 23). Et quomodo non peccatorum desiderat mortem? Haec, et si qua alia admenta haereticorum venenorum, quem non vel in scrupulum figant, si non in exitium ? vel in bilem, si non in mortem? At tu, fides si vigilat, ibidem scorpio pro solea anathema illidito, et relinquito in suo sopore morientem. Caeterum, si plagam 0124B satiaverit, intimat virus, et properat in viscera; statim omnes pristini sensus retorpescunt, sanguis animi gelascit, carne spiritus exolescit, nausea nominis inaccrescit . Jam et ipsa mens sibi quo vomat quaerit. Atque ita semel infirmitas quae percussa est , sauciatam fidem vel in haeresim , vel in saeculum exspirat. Et nunc praesentia rerum est medius ardor ipsa canicula persecutionis: ab ipso scilicet cynocephalo. Alios ignis, alios gladius, alios 0125A bestiae Christianos probaverunt. Alii fustibus interim et ungulis insuper degustata martyria in carcere esuriunt . Nos ipsi ut lepores, destinata venatio, de longinquo obsidemur, et haeretici ex more grassantur. Itaque tempus admonuit adversus nostrates bestiolas (promptam) mederi theriacam stylo temperare; qui legeris, biberis. Non amarum potio . Si eloquia Domini dulcia super mella et favos (Ps. XVIII, 7), inde pigmenta sunt; si lacte et melle promissio Dei manat, hoc sapiunt quae illuc faciunt. Vae autem qui dulce in amarum, et lumen in tenebras convertunt (Is. V, 20). Perinde enim et qui martyriis refragantur, salutem perditionem interpretantes, tam dulce in amarum, quam lucem in tenebras reformant, atque ita miserrimam hanc vitam 0125B illi beatissimae praevertendo, tam amarum pro dulci, quam tenebras pro luce supponunt.