Chapter IX.137    Comp. The Apology, cc. xl. xli.  [And Augustine, Civ. Dei. iii.]    Compare Augustine, de Civ. Dei, vi. 7.  [Tom. vii. p. 184.]—The Christians are Not the Cause of Public Calamities: There Were Such Troubles Before Christianity.

But why should I be astonished at your vain imputations?  Under the same natural form, malice and folly have always been associated in one body and growth, and have ever opposed us under the one instigator of error.138    By the “manceps erroris” he means the devil.    Æditum ejus. Indeed, I feel no astonishment; and therefore, as it is necessary for my subject, I will enumerate some instances, that you may feel the astonishment by the enumeration of the folly into which you fall, when you insist on our being the causes of every public calamity or injury. If the Tiber has overflowed its banks, if the Nile has remained in its bed, if the sky has been still, or the earth been in commotion, if death139    Libitina.    That is, when he mounted the pyre. has made its devastations, or famine its afflictions, your cry immediately is, “This is the fault140    Christianorum meritum, which with “sit” may also, “Let the Christians have their due.” In The Apology the cry is, “Christianos ad leonem.”    Herculi functam. “Fungi alicui” means to satisfy, or yield to. of the Christians!” As if they who fear the true God could have to fear a light thing, or at least anything else (than an earthquake or famine, or such visitations).141    We insert this after Oehler. Tertullian’s words are, “Quasi modicum habeant aut aliud metuere qui Deum verum.”    The well-known Greek saying, ῎Αλλος οὗτος ῾Ηρακλῆς. I suppose it is as despisers of your gods that we call down on us these strokes of theirs. As we have remarked already,142    See above, c. vii.    Pluto; Proserpine, the daughter of Ceres, is meant. Oehler once preferred to read, “Hebe, quæ mortuo placuit,” i.e., “than Hebe, who gratified Hercules after death.” three hundred years have not yet passed in our existence; but what vast scourges before that time fell on all the world, on its various cities and provinces! what terrible wars, both foreign and domestic! what pestilences, famines, conflagrations, yawnings, and quakings of the earth has history recorded!143    Sæculum digessit.    Tertullian often refers indignantly to this atrocious case. Where were the Christians, then, when the Roman state furnished so many chronicles of its disasters? Where were the Christians when the islands Hiera, Anaphe, and Delos, and Rhodes, and Cea were desolated with multitudes of men? or, again, when the land mentioned by Plato as larger than Asia or Africa was sunk in the Atlantic Sea? or when fire from heaven overwhelmed Volsinii, and flames from their own mountain consumed Pompeii? when the sea of Corinth was engulphed by an earthquake? when the whole world was destroyed by the deluge? Where then were (I will not say the Christians, who despise your gods, but) your gods themselves, who are proved to be of later origin than that great ruin by the very places and cities in which they were born, sojourned, and were buried, and even those which they founded?  For else they would not have remained to the present day, unless they had been more recent than that catastrophe.  If you do not care to peruse and reflect upon these testimonies of history, the record of which affects you differently from us,144    Aliter vobis renuntiata.    Subigitis. in order especially that you may not have to tax your gods with extreme injustice, since they injure even their worshippers on account of their despisers, do you not then prove yourselves to be also in the wrong, when you hold them to be gods, who make no distinction between the deserts of yourselves and profane persons? If, however, as it is now and then very vainly said, you incur the chastisement of your gods because you are too slack in our extirpation, you then have settled the question145    Absolutum est. of their weakness and insignificance; for they would not be angry with you for loitering over our punishment, if they could do anything themselves,—although you admit the same thing indeed in another way, whenever by inflicting punishment on us you seem to be avenging them.  If one interest is maintained by another party, that which defends is the greater of the two. What a shame, then, must it be for gods to be defended by a human being!

9. Sed quid ego mirer vana vestra, cum ex forma naturali concorporata et concreta intercessit malitia et stultitia sub eodem mancipe erroris? Sane, quia non miror, enumerem necesse est, et vos recognoscendo miremini, in quantam stultitiam incidatis, qui omnis cladis publicae vel injuriae nos caussas esse vultis. Si Tiberis redundaverit, si Nilus non redundavit, si coelum stetit, si terra movit . . . . tiva vastavit, si fames afflixit, statim omnium vox: Christi . . . . tum. Quasi modicum habeant aut aliud metuere! 0571B Quid igitur? Opinor, ut contemptores deorum vestrorum haec jacula eorum provocamus. Ut supra edidimus, aetatis nostrae nondum anni trecenti, quantae clades ante id spatium supra universum orbem ad singulas urbes et provincias ceciderunt? quanta bella externa et intestina? quot pestes, fames, ignes, hiatus motusque terrarum seculum digessit? Ubi tunc Christiani, cum res Romana tot historias laborum suorum subministravit? ubi tunc Christiani, cum Hierenappe et Delphos et Rhodos et Creta insulae multis cum millibus hominum pessumierunt; vel quam Plato memorat majorem Asiam aut Africam in Atlantico mari mersam; cum Vulsinios de coelo, Tarpeios de suo monte perfudit ignis, cum terrae motu mare Corinthium ereptum est, cum 0571C totum orbem cataclysmus abolevit? Ubi tunc, non dicam contemptores deorum Christiani, sed ipsi dei vestri, quos clade illa posteriores loca, oppida approbant, in quibus nati, morati, sepulti sunt, etiam quae condiderunt? non alias enim superfuissent ad hodiernum, nisi posthuma cladis illius. Sed relegere et revolvere non curatis testimonia temporum aliter vobis renuntiata, imprimis ne deos vestros injustissimos pronuntietis, qui propter contemptores etiam cultores suos laedunt; tunc enim vosmetipsos errare probatis, si deos traditis, qui vos a meritis profanorum non discernunt. Quod si, ut unus atque alius . . . . . mus ait, idcirco vobis quoque irascuntur, quoniam de 0572A nostra eradicatione negligitis, absolutum est de infirmitate et mediocritate eorum: nam non irascerentur vobis in animadversione cessantibus, si ipsi exsequi possent; quanquam et alias confitemini istud, si quando illos supplicio nostro videmini ulcisci. Abaliud a majore defenditur .